Wow! That appears to have undermined any chance of reinstatement.

Just so everyone knows... rand no longer has SE chat privileges - he no longer has a voice.

@d'alar'cop: Does he have any priveleges at all right now?

@CodeNewbie Nope. Also just so everyone know - there is NOTHING that isn't public about this.... the only reason rand was banned was for ONE comment on our MinderDaemon qn (after we had sorted out the link in the qn body itself)... ONE comment! So, just ignore the stuff like "Oh, there's a lot you can't see - it's all been purged" - typical BS from admins

@d'alar'cop: That comment being?

@CodeNewbie puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/20487/… - on the top answer to this qn - rand posted (as Minder Daemon) "Well done, full solution is up at riddlersden.com/#19";... this is among his 1000s of PSE actions

BTW @CodeNewbie my comments in chat in the pursuit of justice and transparency will probably disappear - just as rand disappeared don't be surprised if I get thrown into an ocean from a helicopter too...

puzzling.stackexchange.com/users/7363/h34 first-rand supporter to disappear over an ocean... I swear I heard the chopper

My deleted comment (as I said there would be) was a stronger version of this: "If they had banned Minder Daemon.. that might have been reasonable. rand was posting under this account - which we all own, he just happened to be pushing the buttons. This issue is simply being used as an excuse to exclude rand. It is clearly unjustifiable."

@Emrakul what exactly are 'voting irregularities'?

Did we figure out if ool was, in fact, a sockpuppet? (seemed like it)

Also (and this really isn't a jab at you, I'm honestly curious) -- is there anything detrimental to a site's health in having moderators that aren't frequent site posters?

@ArtOfCode I trust the mods, but I'm also inquisitive and nosy! Please don't misinterpret my intentions. I know rand has been, as Molly Hatchet would say, flirtin' with disaster for quite some time..

And hey, this might be the biggest controversy I've been around to witness on PSE, but at least it got people into the chat room! So that's cool...

Question for the mods: I know @Doorknob pointed out the procedure for suspensions (7 days, 30 days, 365 days), but is there any "good behavior" situation built in? If you behave yourself for XXX days, we drop your suspension level down (so instead of a year for the next suspension, you only get 30 days again)?

@BaileyM Basically it means someone has been messing with the voting system in ways that are not supposed to. For example, voting someone upwards or downwards on several posts in a short period of time, or creating a sockpuppet to upvote yourself.

@d'alar'cop If you really think our mods are abusive and wrong all the time, then maybe it's time we took care of it. Perhaps we could create a poll on meta asking people to vote on whether we should keep our mods. If the majority of people decide to kick them out, we'll contact the CMs and get new ones. I was going to say that if the majority of the people decided to keep them, we should suspend certain people for troublemaking, but I doubt that's necessary.

@Emrakul: Not that I am looking to boot anyone, but how feasible is this suggestion from lloyd about a poll?

Would that be okay with the mods, @Emrakul and @Doorknob ?

+1 for "Is there community confidence in the decision?"... mind you, any vote taken here will be strongly biased towards mods and their "decisions" (I mean whims... oh nvm). They can call in a swathe of mods and SE staff from all round to vote and pose as ACTUAL community members. None of these SE admins even DO anything to contribute actual content or anything positive (imo) to the site... and then they come in droves to vote and run the place!! SE is a dictatorship, not a democracy.

@d'alar'cop, you make a point about SE admins who don't do anything to contribute content to the site, and yet here you are agreeing with ool, an account with literal zero posts on PSE...I hope you see the hypocrisy in that.

yes, well ool just volunteered to not be in the vote...

:D

and the idea to oust the current moderator team or parts thereof has been floating around for about a year! (so, I'm not agreeing with him as such)

True, which he did after I made my point, making me sound a bit sillly. :) I think if we did have a vote of some sort, it would need a rep floor for sure.

@d'alar'cop Just as a point of reference, Puzzling is pretty close to the criteria for design-independent graduation. That would allow us to hold moderator elections.

@JonEricson there's a lot of text on that page and a lot of me not understanding exactly what it means. :( are you able to explain exactly what PSE needs to do to get to graduation from where we are now?

(re rep floors for polling: make it PSE-specific)

@BaileyM The primary consideration is question rate. Puzzling is at 9.5 questions a day.

Factoid of the day: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/257614/… The first point here say "When a site starts to consistently receive 10 questions/day, we’ll consider it for graduation." - when rand is around the Qs per day is consistently above 10... whenever he goes overseas it drops below.

"The real requirement is understanding the community being moderated" Oh, how I agree +1

@AggieKidd It's not a strict rule. It's just a recommendation. Any number of days can be specified when suspending, but the 7-30-365 progression is just what is usually used.

@Emrakul (This is completely my fault, by the way. I chose the wrong suspension template to start with; I'll be more careful in the future.)

@Doorknob On the same idea, do those increases count cumulatively for different types of violations? I know Rand has been in trouble for things he has said in the past, but I don't recall promotion before.

I just wonder if a shorter suspension might still get the point across, but not take a leading contributor away for so long.

Sorry, I don't have time to talk in chat right now (I'm actually at school during a free period). I'll be around this afternoon, hopefully.

Short answer to that is: sometimes yes, sometimes no, it depends on the situation.

Is it off-limits for me to ask who ool is a sockpuppet of?

Why is it against the rules to openly discuss which account is a sockpuppet of another user, and who that user is?

@BaileyM If a user admits it's their sock, that's OK. As mods, it's impossible to be 100% sure - we've got a lot of data that can help, but absolute certainty is impossible.

If we accuse someone of having this sock when it isn't theirs, and they're suspended, they can't say "actually, that's not true".

And if they can't put their POV forward, everyone's opinions of them form around that incorrect decision to suspend.

Yo haha I didn't even know you were a mod

@BaileyM Heh. It happens. Blue names :)

WHOA THAT MAKES IT SO MUCH EASIER

Room owners are italic, mods are blue.

Can I make my name like rainbow and squiggly? I remember I could do that in Runescape

@BaileyM I wish :)

[color:rainbow] HELLO WORLD

dang

well I tried

Heh. Mods get a load of cool stuff to play with.

translate: Bienvenue!

(from French) Welcome!

yo how do I become a mod, I want that

@BaileyM Be careful what you wish for. If I've learned anything from this exchange, it's that I don't want to be a mod (way too much responsibility and need for caution).

@BaileyM Have fun with elections :) Alternatively, find an A51 proposal to support and get nominated.

That said... I was as you are now about a month ago. I got my appointment early August. It's a lot harder than it looks.

I am willing to sacrifice my mental well-being for an auto-translate tool and/or squiggly rainbow text.

@BaileyM You still have your mental well-being to sacrifice? Doing better than me.

And access to all the secrets, don't forget them :)

I admit, it feels a bit strained.

@ArtOfCode So, Holder of Secret Knowledge, given what has been said about the process of Rand's suspension thus far, what are the chances we get him back before next August?

@AggieKidd Small. I think. I'm not a mod on Puzzling, so I'm not party to the secret information that went into his suspension, but if the suspension was warranted then he won't be back until it runs out.

I'd expect the suspension to be warranted. Mods, when suspending, converse about these things, and get input from SE staff and mods on other sites if they're unsure.

It would appear, from Emrakul's messages, that this is his third suspension, which is by default 365 days (it goes 7 - 30 - 365).

@ArtOfCode Do suspensions count cumulatively, even if they aren't for the same thing? I know Rand has gotten upset and in trouble before, but I don't recall ever seeing promotional posts before, which was what this suspension was for.

@AggieKidd They do. The theory is that if someone has disrupted the site enough to earn a suspension 3 times, then they should go away for a long time regardless of what the suspensions were for.

@ArtOfCode This is probably a little extreme of a comparison, but it feels a little like giving someone jail time for speeding because they had parking tickets before.

@AggieKidd It's more like giving someone jail time for speeding because the points you put on their license for the speeding offence amounted to over 12. They got the other points for other things, but their record is blackmarked, and the cumulative effect of the offences is to get them a sentence.

@ArtOfCode It still feels like a first offense in another area should warrant a more lenient approach. If a child breaks three different rules, you punish them (at least in my approach) for each rule separately. Let them learn, "doing this is bad" and then let them continue forward. Don't teach them "doing anything is bad" and make them afraid to do anything. It just seems a touch too severe.

@AggieKidd I can certainly see your reasoning there, and it's valid. However, I'm not the one to take it up with, fortunately :)

I tend to agree though (this is personal perspective, not Official Moderator Perspective™)

@ArtOfCode Fair enough. I guess I just hope those to whom it resides with will read this at some point.

That's your mods here, and one assumes they read their chat :)

@ArtOfCode They have been thus far (at least @Doorknob and @Emrakul. If there are others, I'm not sure who they are...)

Lemme find out...

Kevin is the other

I haven't seen much from Kevin for a while... Kinda forgot about him. Sorry @Kevin!

@leoll2 do you still exist?

@AggieKidd Just to clarify, the promotional comment was not the sole reason for the suspension. Sorry if we haven't made that clear enough. There were many other factors that went into the decision, which was very carefully thought out.

Also, thanks to @BaileyM, @AggieKidd, and others for talking through this in a civil manner—I can definitely see how it'd be very easy to get angry at the situation, and your polite and useful input is much appreciated. :)

@Doorknob I guess that makes sense. Just not being privy to all of those details, it does (even as @Emrakul mentioned earlier) look to at least myself rather drastic to suspend someone for an entire year.

@AggieKidd Yeah, we can totally understand where you're coming from. Unfortunately it's not always possible to involve the entire community in every single facet of how the site is run, although of course that would be ideal.

@Doorknob To again just give my viewpoint which others may share, from what I have seen, a year seems excessive. I don't know everything that may have happened (and in the end I must leave it in the hands of those granted the responsibility), but I will miss Rand's puzzles and really hope that something perhaps more agreeable to both parties can be reached.

@Doorknob I can imagine the choas that might create, but again the ideal. Is it somehow possible to rely a little more on user flags and voting patterns? I hadn't seen too much negative reaction towards Rand, but public humiliation has always been my choice for changing people's minds/attitudes.

@Emrakul Again, something that would probably take some serious thought and community discussion to agree upon, but something of the effect of "you get flagged X amount of times (where X > 1 or 2) or receive a huge number of downvotes, and then it gets reviewed.

@Emrakul Or, you open it up for comments somehow so that people can let the poster know that the current behavior is not welcome.

Rand feels set upon by both you and Doorknob, so messages coming from you are not likely to make much of an impact beyond confirming what he believes. If the community feels the same way and shares it, then I would think he would be more likely to cease said activities.

But... at the same time there are personal (dare I say) hatreds that somehow have been cultivated over a puzzle site (I guess people just don't get along sometimes), so give it enough room to make sure that there aren't just a few that try to block someone instantly because they don't like the person.

@Emrakul Again, makes sense, and I respect that. And I hope I don't sound like a broken record, and I don't know how much happened and where (I only saw a post by a sockpuppet and a comment of acceptance that had a link), but if the community wasn't acting in this situation, was it really severe enough for a year?

@Emrakul Again, fair. I guess at this point I'd have to assume there was a fair amount in the history that led to a year. But I would ask (rhetorically, I don't want a public answer) how recently all of the history was, and if a lighter suspension would get the point across without making some of us nervous about posting anything?

And maybe that isn't entirely fair. Again, I don't know how much happened, and I would assume having seen some of Rand's reactions in the past that he will be "appealing" the suspension, so I hope all parties involved can come to an agreeable decision.

@AggieKidd There's every possibility it would. However, if my reading here is correct, all the mods have done is followed the default setting of third suspension => 365 days. There would've had to be reasoning if they'd chosen a different setting. Now, I'm not saying that's a problem, and I don't know any of the details either.

@Emrakul I appreciate that.

@ArtOfCode I guess I would in generally probably lean towards not having a default (across all sites, not just puzzling) that jumps from 7-30-365 days. Maybe I'm more on the forgiving side, but I'd think (1-7-14-30-60-365-Life) might facilitate a more progressive disiplinary schedule. Again, not just here, and me just sharing my own opinions (which may or may not be valid).

@AggieKidd I tend to agree (again, personal not mod opinion). In fact, when I've had to suspend people, I've gone with 3 days first suspension, looking at a progression like 3-7-14-30-100-365.

Only the SE team can hand out suspensions for longer than a year, so you have to have pretty big problems with a user for them to do that.

@Emrakul I believe under the theory that you should ramp it up quickly so they learn quickly.

@Emrakul Originally, it was 1–7, 30, 120-or-deletion

I'd promote that if enough mods are in favor of it, that the philosophy be rexamined. Again, my opinion only.

@Emrakul :

Nevertheless, depending on the severity of the problem behaviour, the account may be placed in timed suspension for anywhere from 1 to 365 days at the complete discretion of the moderator. The durations of 7, 30, and 365 days are suggested values for the first, second, and third “serious issue”.

The philosophy is described here:

Repost: just so everyone knows - there is NOTHING that isn't public about this.... the only reason rand was banned was for ONE comment on our MinderDaemon qn (after we had sorted out the link in the qn body itself)... ONE comment! And it could've been any of the tea; rand just happened to be the man pressing ENTER. So, just ignore the stuff like "Oh, there's a lot you can't see - it's all been purged"