The way OCN is moderated

Hi! This thread is about the frustration of many members on OCN with the rules, or the strictness (or lack of, in some cases) of the mods.

I've talked to several people (in PM) after they had a thread locked, got an infraction or something similar, and they all feel the same: they would leave OCN if they could find another place that does/doesn't do something specific, but they can't find any.

Yep, that's right, the community and the general behavior of people on OCN keeps these people (and me) here, but a lot of people seem to feel very frustrated with the moderation, so much that they would leave in an instant if they found another community which replicates whatever it is they see only in OCN.

Mods may delete or lock threads without saying why (or who) - so you have noone to contact. The rules say you should PM the mod who gave you the infraction, locked your thread or deleted your thread if you think it was unjust, but in these cases you have no choice but to make another thread, which is then deleted because it's against the rules to talk about it outside of PM with the mod who did it. (and the mod who locked your new thread will conveniently ignore the fact you don't have the PM option, even if you confront them about it)

Quote:
In some cases, the smallest slip up that hints in the direction of trolling (even if it is so small that it's obvious it wasn't trolling) will land you an infraction. Or posts will mysteriously disappear...

The same goes for piracy. It seems, in some cases, that if you even dare to you use the words "I" and "pirate" in the same sentence, you get an infraction, your post is deleted or both.

Or you can make a picture post (with a funny picture which is very relevant to the thread)... and get a free infraction courtesy of the professionalism initiative!

You might slip and type a "u" instead of "you" out of habit and get told off, but there are people who do this all the time and it seems nobody mentions it to them. There's even a mod who does this very often (but not always, strangely enough). Political correctness?

In other cases, you can have a very blatant troll (after 3x50 post pages of fighting with the entire thread, people start calling him a troll...) or somebody who's dancing while singing about how many games and software they pirate (which is also trolling on OCN, lol), but this is somehow on the same level as casually mentioning you pirate because at the moment you felt like you're talking to a friend, rather than the rules thread - or, it's on the same level as the "sorta-kinda-it's-a-bit-like trolling" posts...

You might see threads with TONS of picture posts of the same kind, but they are left alone. In those threads, it's somehow okay.

There's also a certain popular thread where downloads are mentioned a lot and links are given out, but the mods perceive it as completely legal for some reason, so it's left alone. I post in this thread just so I can see how hypocritical this entire thing is.

That brings me to talk of DVD ripping being banned, by this rule: "Discuss the circumvention of security-related applications". Okay, fine, we don't help people break WEP encryption mainly due to ethical reasons (come on, there are legitimate uses for breaking encryption), but DVD ripping? It's a stupid rule which should be change.

Ignoring doom9.org's existence (which is centered around breaking audio and video encryption) is very convenient. That site is still up ONLY because their mods make sure the material you post about was legitimately obtained, which makes it legal. Yes, that's right, if you're making a copy out of your own legitimately obtained material, it's legal and there's no reason for this to be banned on OCN!

For example, if you have an AVI you want to improve, they ask you how you got it and why you can't rip it again from the DVD. Having an untouched DVD sample is considered sufficient proof simply because it's extremely rare for an untouched DVD to be available on torrents or other methods of pirating.

In contrast, the threads where people want to go from AVI or MKV to DVD -- which are, for the most part, pirated sources -- are left alone.

My rant's done, but watch this thread get locked now because of that stupid rule that says you can't discuss infractions, warnings or deleted posts. (what an interesting oversight, you CAN discuss locked threads if you didn't get an infraction!)

I can only say to this to the mod with his finger on the trigger: good luck trying to make a change where nobody can see you trying. Good luck trying to make somebody who believes the rules are perfectly fine and they are acting according to the rules bring this up, or even be a bit less/more (depending on the case) strict.

OCN, the best yet the worst tech community.