Staff complaint [T. Calderone]

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justtakethat

Bluelighter
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Oct 21, 2014
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Alright this staff member by the name of T Calderone has been inactive lately. If he or she is assigned to moderate Basic Drug Discussion they are doing a very poor job at it as I have not seen her post anything for numerous days and just being inactive in general.

Anyways I suggested someone using meth and who was seeing hallucinations and stuff might be getting an mental illness since those are a well known side effect of meth use. I misread where he was only using it recently so that can rule out the possibility of a mental illness but I also suggested he try some non toxic alternatives instead of meth.

So a moderator makes me aware that the OP had only done meth for a short time and in that case suggesting he could have a mental illness might come off as degrading. I apologized and realized the misunderstanding. So fast forward a few days and I get a little notification saying I'm banned for trolling? I had no clue why I was even banned or for what post other than "trolling". I tried appealing it to the email it said to appeal too only to get no replies. This is really a shame as it also shows lack of communication with this particular moderator. She makes no attempt to message me or message other mods seeing if maybe we already discussed the mental illness thing or whatever and instead just straight up bans a member. I've been here for about 2 or 3 years now and I've only seen T Calderone administrating poorly in the sense that she just randomly comes on after being inactive and just bans me without even attempting to communicate.

On top of that she won't even reply to her ban appeals? If she's banning someone she can at least reply to my appeal instead of making me wait 24 hours since she saw me several days old post that was already discussed with " keeping" and just straight up bans. I could see a green lighter or something but I have almost 700 posts and am by no means a new member. I would really like to see action taken against this abuse in power or just plain poor administration and lack of effort administrate the BDD section because this is getting out of hand. You would at least thing the moderators would communicate with the other BDD mods before just throwing infractions like nothing. Especially on some old post.

I have met some outstanding administrators who are more than capable of performing their job so it's not like it's the whole staff team or BDD moderation team by any means. I just don't understand this moderators will to abuse power on a harm reduction forum.
 
I tried appealing it to the email it said to appeal too only to get no replies. This is really a shame as it also shows lack of communication with this particular moderator.
bluelight is run entirely by volunteers who dedicate their own time to helping the site. if you'd like to donate a few tens of thousands of dollars to the site so that we can pay people to staff the place, we can get back to you more quickly in future? :)

so you were infracted for this post:

Probably getting a mental illness because of the amps fucking you up. I think hallucinating is the sign to lay off a bit. Get some nontoxic drugs mate your body will thank me later.

and the reason given was:

T. Calderone said:
You're not a psychiatrist and can't suggest that someone has a mental illness from drugs.
Obviously, you're not familiar with meth use so again you're commenting on things you know nothing about.

which seems entirely reasonable. your temporary ban is up now and i don't see a need to take any further action.

t. calderone is an outstanding staff member and i don't believe this infraction was, to any reasonable observer, an abuse of power. if you see other instances you'd like to discuss, please pm me or email at the admin gmail.

regards and thanks

alasdair
 
bluelight is run entirely by volunteers who dedicate their own time to helping the site. if you'd like to donate a few tens of thousands of dollars to the site so that we can pay people to staff the place, we can get back to you more quickly in future? :)

so you were infracted for this post:



and the reason given was:



which seems entirely reasonable. your temporary ban is up now and i don't see a need to take any further action.

t. calderone is an outstanding staff member and i don't believe this infraction was, to any reasonable observer, an abuse of power. if you see other instances you'd like to discuss, please pm me or email at the admin gmail.

regards and thanks

alasdair
I will indeed be following up on this complaint as many things were not even addressed by you and it looks like you typed out that reply in a minute. I've been in many communities that were administrated by volunteers and that was never a reason for then to be inactive or not do their job properly.
 
Justtakethat, you messaged me yesterday and I responded to you this morning. Is that not timely enough for you? You wouldn't know if I communicate with other moderators and have no clue how the business end of this site works or me being inactive. Therefore, you won't see many of my posts. The post in question was made Sept 12 (3 days ago is not old) and infracted the next day after being reported by another moderator.

I could throw the "unfairness" right back at you. Have you complained when any other moderator has infracted you?
 
Justtakethat, you messaged me yesterday and I responded to you this morning. Is that not timely enough for you? You wouldn't know if I communicate with other moderators and have no clue how the business end of this site works or me being inactive. Therefore, you won't see many of my posts. The post in question was made Sept 12 (3 days ago is not old) and infracted the next day after being reported by another moderator.

I could throw the "unfairness" right back at you. Have you complained when any other moderator has infracted you?
Any other moderator would let me know respectfully and attempt to improve what's going on, with you I just get a random ban for trolling 3 days after the post. Only after being unbanned could I see that you banned me for some old post telling me that I knew nothing about what I was saying.

I've only really had a problem with lack of professionalism coming from you.
 
If someone made such a comment to you as the post which you were infracted for, I don't think you'd have appreciated it too much. Sounds like you hadn't even read the thread. Calderone has always seemed quite patient with people IMO.
 
Justtakethat you're not new here. You know the rules perfectly well, including how to behave. What makes you specially deserving of a polite PM every time you overstep the boundaries?
 
Justtakethat you're not new here. You know the rules perfectly well, including how to behave. What makes you specially deserving of a polite PM every time you overstep the boundaries?
Cause I don't agree that telling a meth user that's having hallucinations that he might have a mental illness is stepping over the boundaries.
 
^ perhaps. but it's the forum staff who decide where the boundary is drawn, not you.

Justtakethat you're not new here. You know the rules perfectly well...
indeed.

justtakethat, you're playing the innocent martyr card a little hard here. in your time at bluelight, you've received 9 infractions and 1 warning from 5 different staff members. the idea that this is a lone incident for which you are being targeted is a little hard to take.

in february 2016, i infracted you for a problematic post with this comment:

alasdairm said:
you've been warned once and infracted twice for behavior which is incompatible with bluelight's mission and our forum rules.

you need to find a way to take on board the feedback you're getting and change both the tone and substance of your posts. if you can't or won't, you'll receive more infractions leading to longer and longer temporary bans.

you've failed to change the tone/substance of your posts so you have been infracted.

alasdair
 
Doesn't the infractions reset after a while though? It seems like they have and I wouldn't like to keep holding onto something that happend last year mate. I'd like the moderator to improve on communication in the future for the reasons stated above.
 
infraction points used to expire (after a year) but that lead to a situation where persistent trouble-makers would receive infractions but they'd have little effect as the punishment would not increment as points expired.

we made a change (see: Bans and the Infraction System) so that, after an initial warning and infraction, points no longer expire.

it's possible that a factor here is that you're not getting the benefit of the doubt? after 1 warning and 9 infractions, you don't.

alasdair
 
infraction points used to expire (after a year) but that lead to a situation where persistent trouble-makers would receive infractions but they'd have little effect as the punishment would not increment as points expired.

we made a change (see: Bans and the Infraction System) so that, after an initial warning and infraction, points no longer expire.

it's possible that a factor here is that you're not getting the benefit of the doubt? after 1 warning and 9 infractions, you don't.

alasdair
Regard less of my past the moderator should take appropriate steps to correct behavior. Calderone made no attempt to warn me that what I said could be perceived as negative as the other mods who care take time to improve the overall community of blue light have done. This moderator should have their methods of issuing infractions reviewed as it is just abuse. Plus the only reason I got was telling? Tell me how did what I say about mental illnesses classify as trolling? She was just itching to issue an infraction and believe she should be monitored by the head administrators.
 
i disagree that it's abuse but thank you for your comments.

alasdair
 
could we all be better at communicating the reasons for our actions? probably - i'd be the first to admit that.

but, again, the site is run entirely by volunteers and 'real life' can get in the way sometimes.

we're not landing planes here. you were infracted, have received an explanation, have complained about how it was handled and we've discussed it. time to move on.

alasdair
 
At least you can admit some faults on her behalf, thank you. Was starting to think this was just the admins/mods explaining why they are right and I'm wrong when clearly we seem to both have some areas where we could improve on. You can go ahead and close this now thanks.
 
i'm not admitting anything on her behalf.

closed on request.

alasdair
 
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