My perspective on banning, moderators, and vaporware

[Nurendra]

Questions that I (and other forum members) want answered:

While I see that baby steps are (now) being taken to keep the forum clean(er) by banning members, why some and not all?

Inflammatory posts were done by others besides digitalhippie. rysskii3 has also been guilty of several inflammatory posts and libel. Yet he is not banned. In an im he sent to me (where I remained courteous and he obviously does not) he states his reason for his defense of Eurojet; “ I can care less what u say or think! Ur just another punk on this forum. They have been good to me, giving good discounts, free parts…. So I’m gonna back them up!” He has attacked relationships and made up non-existent fights. (Please see the #1 forum rule listed at the end of this post).

Eurojet has also acted in a non professional manner with no perceived disciplinary action. Why? Businesses need to refrain from sinking beneath a certain level. Behavior like this is why I never do business with them.

Second, since you moderators have inserted yourselves as referees into the Eurojet discharge/throttle body pipes, what would you consider a reasonable amount of time for them to provide the data they said they would?
It cannot be that they are given an infinite period of time to provide this data supporting their claim while keeping the nay-sayers at bay. That would be grossly unfair to those banned. Give them a time frame to post data backing their claims. If they don't, ban 'em for selling vaporware.

Perception is reality and my perception at this moment is that because digitalhippie was banned from the Vortex, he is being railroaded as an undesirable. More libel on him is being flung in the suspension forum without any of you moderators editing it or setting the record straight.
See: http://www.golfmk5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36998 He’s been accused of having temper tantrums, fighting with Eurojet, unsafe practices(???), falsifying claims, global warming, rising mortgage rates . . . Well you get the picture.

Since he's banned, no one cares, right?

Who has done more for the forums in terms of help, diy’s etc. The self proclaimed ‘VeeDub KING’ or digitalhippie?
Who has done all of the work on their car and helped out several of us with pcv fixes, fuel pump upgrades, water meth add-ons, 26+ Mk5 suspensions, vag-com logs anytime, brake diy’s, intercooler install, led install . . . . etc.

Why is one banned and the other one not?

I do not wish to be contacted privately by the moderators. This is a public forum, so answer us. A moderator response stating “we do not discuss specifics about why someone is banned, but sufficient to say, he violated the forum rules” does not cut it for me.
Rules are specific. If a specific public rule was violated, then an automatic ban should be given with the specific rule violation listed. It does not need to be decided by committee. Discipline all or none. Your half-hearted moderation does not sit well with myself and several other forum members.

I will respond to rational im’s if sent. If the rule below is violated I will report it.

The #1 rule according to the code of conduct is:
Trolling, flaming, and bashing are not acceptable at golfmkv.com. Trolling includes, but is not limited to posting controversial messages with the intention of baiting other users into an argumentative response. Flaming includes, but is not limited to insulting and hostile interaction between users. Bashing, likewise, is also not permitted. All communications are to remain on a respectful and mature level. Do not retaliate to an inappropriate post with another inappropriate post. Instead use the "Report post to moderator" button, or simply PM your moderators if such an instance should arise.

Have a good night all, I’ll step off my soapbox now.

 

[Nurendra]

I wanted to put it somewhere where everyone would read it.
Do you ever go to the suggestion forum? I don't.
The people who care frequent the technical forums, not the 'suggestion' or the 'Mk5 vs the space shuttle' forums ;-)

BTW, I'm not digitalhippie or reside in Togo lol. Feel free to ask the mods to check.
Please note that any quotes I have provided are present on the forum server and can be checked by the moderators.

 

[dpham00]

Questions that I (and other forum members) want answered:

While I see that baby steps are (now) being taken to keep the forum clean(er) by banning members, why some and not all?

Inflammatory posts were done by others besides digitalhippie. rysskii3 has also been guilty of several inflammatory posts and libel. Yet he is not banned. In an im he sent to me (where I remained courteous and he obviously does not) he states his reason for his defense of Eurojet; “ I can care less what u say or think! Ur just another punk on this forum. They have been good to me, giving good discounts, free parts…. So I’m gonna back them up!” He has attacked relationships and made up non-existent fights. (Please see the #1 forum rule listed at the end of this post).

Rules are specific. If a specific public rule was violated, then an automatic ban should be given with the specific rule violation listed. It does not need to be decided by committee. Discipline all or none. Your half-hearted moderation does not sit well with myself and several other forum members.

We won't discuss the specifics of why someone is banned esp. since they're not here. But not talking about specific cases, we give people lots of chances to redeem themselves. If we had banned everyone who posted an inflammatory post, then we'd be viewed as a Nazi forum, which is not our goal here as a lot (and i do mean a lot) of people would have been banned if that where the case.

Eurojet has also acted in a non professional manner with no perceived disciplinary action. Why? Businesses need to refrain from sinking beneath a certain level. Behavior like this is why I never do business with them.

APR also had no "perceived disciplinary action" up until they where banned late last month. Why? Because we wanted to give them a chance, no, many chances, to change their ways before pulling the plug. One admin had given them 10 (that's right 10) warnings about their activities which violated forum rules, and they where given warnings from other admins and mods as well.

Second, since you moderators have inserted yourselves as referees into the Eurojet discharge/throttle body pipes, what would you consider a reasonable amount of time for them to provide the data they said they would?
It cannot be that they are given an infinite period of time to provide this data supporting their claim while keeping the nay-sayers at bay. That would be grossly unfair to those banned. Give them a time frame to post data backing their claims. If they don't, ban 'em for selling vaporware.

There is no rule requiring people to provide what they promised. If they don't wish to do so, that's completely up to them. People are more than welcome to make their own decision about who to buy from.

Perception is reality and my perception at this moment is that because digitalhippie was banned from the Vortex, he is being railroaded as an undesirable. More libel on him is being flung in the suspension forum without any of you moderators editing it or setting the record straight.
See: http://www.golfmk5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36998 He’s been accused of having temper tantrums, fighting with Eurojet, unsafe practices(???), falsifying claims, global warming, rising mortgage rates . . . Well you get the picture.

Since he's banned, no one cares, right?

If you had an issue, then you should've PM'd me the thread link, and I would've taken care of it earlier. Remember that we don't read every single post on here - that's just impossible.

Why is one banned and the other one not?

I do not wish to be contacted privately by the moderators. This is a public forum, so answer us. A moderator response stating “we do not discuss specifics about why someone is banned, but sufficient to say, he violated the forum rules” does not cut it for me.

You where originally contacted privately because you sent me a PM. We knew that banning DH was going to upset some people, and believe me, there was a lot going on behind the scenes before pulling the trigger. If he does give us permission, then we would be willing to explain in detail and in public why he was banned so that everyone can see why it happened. but we won't discuss it without DH's explicit written permission.

 

[dpham00]

I wanted to put it somewhere where everyone would read it.
Do you ever go to the suggestion forum? I don't.
The people who care frequent the technical forums, not the 'suggestion' or the 'Mk5 vs the space shuttle' forums ;-)

BTW, I'm not digitalhippie or reside in Togo lol. Feel free to ask the mods to check.
Please note that any quotes I have provided are present on the forum server and can be checked by the moderators.

This is moved to the Suggestions forum, where it belongs. I have left a permanent link in the Engine forum as well.

Also, i have deleted the posts regarding the fact that the thread was in the wrong location.

 

[DBCPerformance]

My first and last post here that will sum up the feelings.

As far as I am concerned non of the recent instigators, fanbois and those who pop on these forums when there is heat are welcome here. These few really bother me in their entirety, but unfortunately they have not gone far beyond our tolerances as DH did. As far as DH is concerned, we did what we believe was right, and him coming back with another username trolling the forums just confirmed our desicions.

Again, do not come to these forums for any personal agendas. Enough is enough. If we have to run this with 3-4 members peacefully, we don't mind it for a second.

We will go back to old days real soon.

 

[335 Trojan]

Edited so I don't get in trouble.

 

[Nurendra]

I'm breaking your response in 3 parts for rebuttal:

a. APR also had no "perceived disciplinary action" up until they where banned late last month. Why? Because we wanted to give them a chance, no, many chances, to change their ways before pulling the plug. One admin had given them 10 (that's right 10) warnings about their activities which violated forum rules, and they where given warnings from other admins and mods as well.

b. There is no rule requiring people to provide what they promised. If they don't wish to do so, that's completely up to them. People are more than welcome to make their own decision about who to buy from.

c.If you had an issue, then you should've PM'd me the thread link, and I would've taken care of it earlier. Remember that we don't read every single post on here - that's just impossible.

You where originally contacted privately because you sent me a PM. We knew that banning DH was going to upset some people, and believe me, there was a lot going on behind the scenes before pulling the trigger. If he does give us permission, then we would be willing to explain in detail and in public why he was banned so that everyone can see why it happened. but we won't discuss it without DH's explicit written permission.

a. Was dh given 10 warnings before being banned? I will also pm him to see if he was. The same rules apply to all, right?

b. "There is no rule requiring people to provide what they promised." See my problem with that is that rules (like opinions) are flexible prejudices while justice is more concrete. If you insert yourself in the middle of a debate, you're then placed yourself as a mediator. Banning a nay-saying member and allowing the thread to die does not address the fact that no data has still been provided. See the problem of this thread was not the argument, but it's cause. If you don't address that, then you're not policing the forums properly.

c. You don't need to read every single post to keep them clean and above the belt. Watch the trouble spots, use search with specific keywords. See what pops up.
I've had over 250 direct reports to me and I know the instigators, the hang out spots, the triggers points of each one of them. I do the right thing, not the popular thing. All I'm asking is you do the same.

 

[crew219]

Nurendra: Not sure what DH has done to others besides me, but after being banned from golfmkv, he created a new email account davemak99@gmail.com pretending to be me by emailing eurojet and flaming them. I was made aware of this when Joel @ Eurojet contacted me over AIM wondering "what the hell my problem was". He also created the screennames DavieMak and Chong219 posting on the forums pretending to me. Of course when all those were also banned he created SantasLittleHelper. I believe I was also not only the only person he harassed as when Joel and I spoke, DH had also been harassing both him and John via PM on golfmkv for quite some time, up to the point that both of them made a corporate decision to simply put them on their ignore lists.

Now lets look at Eurojet and other companies in general. To be completely honest, both you and i know that the main reason why DH has beef with them is because they marketed their PCV fix, which DH somehow believes is patented by him or a product of his ingenuity (not GIAC or Induktion's idea). To what other company has DH scrutinized to such an extent as Eurojet? Well probably APR, up until the point that he received their software for free. If you apply his demands for proof to other companies Forge, Neuspeed, EvoMS, etc you will see that all these companies provide limited or no proof as every other company does. His constant beratement of Eurojet, stating that their valves "fail right out of the box" is also quite libelous. Unlike DH, they actually have a reputation that can be damaged by such statements.

It is interesting that you bring up Rysskii3 and his relationship with Eurojet. Doesn't the same level of scrutiny apply to DH and Forge?

Is it up to the company to provide dynos? Probably not. Neuspeed doesn't provide them and their products seem to sell quite well. Most company provided dynos are disregarded as being over-optimistic. I can personally say that there are several products that I have run that do not meet the marketed claims provided by the company. Marketing will always exist and it is up to the consumer to make an informed decision based on common sense, understanding of the design, and feedback from others. C'mon, we're talking about inlet and discharge pipes . . . any 5hp gain from them would simply be dismissed as dyno error

I realize that DH has a very popular local fanbase since he helps out with most local projects, but his online behavior in general is completely unacceptable. I'm not very surprised at what he has done on Golfmkv since he was banned simply because it was the exact same behavior he exhibited on Vortex.

Dave

 

[kirk180]

^^^And that's still not the whole story. Nurendra, chances are you don't know anywhere near the whole story. But that's fine. You're allowed to complain about things you don't know. Not the wisest move, but you're allowed. I can assure you this: If you had done everything he was doing publicly and behind closed doors, you'd be banned too. Simple as that. Rest assure there's no profiling or targeting of the innocent going on here. So why you're attempting to stir the pot about facts you're clueless to is beyond me.

 

[Lucidity]

I'm going to go ahead and chime in on this. I get that DH was being a douche, but that also applies to the guys over at eurojet, for promising members of this forum data, that they didn't and probably don't plan on delivering. To me this just comes down to who does more for the community, after all that is what forums are for, bringing a community of people together to discuss ideas, show stuff off, and help each other out. As far as I am concerned, eurojet is pretty much here to sell products and apparently doesn't care if they work or not, being that they don't want to demonstrate that they do. DH, while not displaying great behavior on the boards has done quite a bit to help members out, unlike Eurojet. Now I get that Eurojet helps to pay the bills, but at least put some sort of guideline for their posting as well. It does take two to tango doesn't it?

 

[xminusx]

^^^And that's still not the whole story. Nurendra, chances are you don't know anywhere near the whole story. But that's fine. You're allowed to complain about things you don't know. Not the wisest move, but you're allowed. I can assure you this: If you had done everything he was doing publicly and behind closed doors, you'd be banned too. Simple as that. Rest assure there's no profiling or targeting of the innocent going on here. So why you're attempting to stir the pot about facts you're clueless to is beyond me.

Then why don't you fill us in?

 

[kirk180]

Then why don't you fill us in?

Because it's really none of your business.

Edit: And I mean that in the nicest way.

 

[angrybaker]

from what I gather, you dont have to get 10 chances before being banned, you can be banned for even 1 incident.

as far as companies not delivering on what they promise, I think that people who do the proper research will be able to come to their own conclusion about the validity of the companies claims in question

 

[Hkysk8r07]

Dave dont try and pretend like you have been an angel this whole time either everybody knows you and tom like to talk shit to each other constantly and try to bring up personal attacks that will fly under the radar to most people looking at a thread since nobody really knows the drama between both of you.

 

[JJ-R32]

FYI, bannings don't have to be explained to anyone. If a member is banned, you can be sure that it was for very legitimate reasons. We don't play favorites here and certainly don't ban on a whim so if you see a banned member, it was of their own doing.

We've laid out the rules clearly here. No one ever said forums were democracies. They are privately run communities with community rules and if a member chooses not to abide by the rules and needs to be forcefully removed, they will be.

Lastly, the mods/admins jobs here are not to justify every action taken to keep the forums clean and in order. I've got full trust in our mods and they enjoy my complete support, so if you have any issues take it up with me directly.