Anyone know how to complain about moderators?

[Manc33]

Here's how to complain about moderators:

You don't.

That's not because I am some "brown nose", it's because from 20 years of arguing online, they have the power and we don't, so it's pointless complaining about them. Moderators are automatically respected by whomever made them a moderator, over anyone that might be complaining about them. Ever think about that? Who is making these people able to be moderators? Even higher up folks... so if you question any moderator, you're not just questioning them, you're questioning the very moral fabric of the forum because it questions the people above them that decided they can be trusted.

It doesn't matter what the moderators do because they can do what they want? Why? Because they can, because they were given those powers for that very reason, to use the powers at their own discretion. It's literally useless to fight them, if you were inclined to do so.

Personally I have never seen the mods here abuse their power, but others might scoff at that and say "My comment got deleted" etc. I don't care. I just don't care if anyone's comment was deleted and they are complaining about it. None of my comments have ever been deleted by mods here and I have argued about insane stuff like flat earth etc, that has got me banned from other bike forums for mentioning it.

Call me naïve but I don't even know what you have to do to get banned here (apart from the obvious that would get you banned anywhere).

[re_cycler]

I must lead a sheltered life. I've no idea what the controversial posts mentioned were about. I'm now feeling I've lost out on some juicy gossip. Can anyone enlighten me.

I think the guy mentioned the H word.

Hair was mentioned

[Cowsham]

I must lead a sheltered life. I've no idea what the controversial posts mentioned were about. I'm now feeling I've lost out on some juicy gossip. Can anyone enlighten me.

I think the guy mentioned the H word.

Hair was mentioned

yes it certainly was.

[Cadence]

I think the guy mentioned the H word.

Hair was mentioned

yes it certainly was.

So was Halfords. I'm so glad I don't work at that particular branch!

[AndyK]

Here's how to complain about moderators:

You don't.

Weeeeell... up to a point. For a while (during my tenure as a Cycling UK trustee) the mods kindly gave me access to their private board, so I had a peek behind the scenes. If you complain to the mods about treatment you think is unfair - and you do so in a reasonable way, stating your case clearly - they do take it seriously, they do discuss it amongst themselves, and they're not above changing their minds.

But yeah, no point in just whingeing about them.

[Cowsham]

Here's how to complain about moderators:

You don't.

Weeeeell... up to a point. For a while (during my tenure as a Cycling UK trustee) the mods kindly gave me access to their private board, so I had a peek behind the scenes. If you complain to the mods about treatment you think is unfair - and you do so in a reasonable way, stating your case clearly - they do take it seriously, they do discuss it amongst themselves, and they're not above changing their minds.

But yeah, no point in just whingeing about them.

I'm sympathetic to moderators since they're giving their time freely to sort out problems on forum -- saying that I've never ever reported a post -- I've probably been reported myself by some offended member and that's OK but we have a saying if you can't take a portion don't dish one out.

[harriedgary]

I'm still going with that theory. It had all the hallmarks of a classic trolling exercise. Find a forum, check to see what subjects cause the most response. Start asking questions that you know will get long and well-meaning replies. Ridicule the answers you get. Dig out random internet quotes that contradict them. Try to steer the responders into arguing with each other, for added fun. Weave in a complicated and traumatic backstory for yourself so that people will feel guilty if they criticise you or call you out. Whenever things start to die down, kick off a new thread. To be fair it's not a pattern you see so often these days (shouting at people on Twitter takes much less time and effort) but it used to be quite common.

I thought it was the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. He livend the forum up no end. You guys need to laugh more --- at yourselves too. I hope cycling doesn't make me that grumpy.

It was funny at first, then it got more than a little tiresome. (Good word that.) When someone is obviously mocking people who are sincerely doing their best to help, it gets hard to laugh after a while. I'm not grumpy about it, I have a former-professional interest in how the trolls, phishers, scammers and other detritus of the Internet ply their trade and how they exploit the goodwill of others.

Whether it's better or worse than the one-post-wonders is another matter.

Someone will be along in a minute to tell us that it was an AI all along. (It wasn't. )

I dunno. I've noticed the uptick in tripe, I mean, feckless youth with too much internet data. Either there is now a country sized army of trolling idiots, or quite a few are AI bots. The problem is that someone somewhere will say something, then it can catch like a spark in the hay, and spread eve though it has no validity. I have seen allegations that some trolling is done by AI bots, but how can you tell, as one of the characteristics of the typical troll is a slight lack of real intelligence, so you always get slightly off responses from them that rapidly decline to simple rebuttals and reversals of whatever you say. Which is precisely the level of intelligence shown by the average Chat GPT based AI bot.