Wow, if I cared I could pretty easily make another account, go through a proxy website, etc, but I don't so.
temp ban from cam-it.org
- Thread starter hmjgriffon
- Start date
I admit, I made a bad joke, I mean if you're sensitive anyways, but I immediately apologized and I guess that wasn't enough. They can suck it though, I have two chronic conditions and I tutored blind students to use computers and others with all manners of disabilities, if they want to make me out to be a demon that is their problem, they don't know me.
If you are lucky, you'll get a banned for life like me. You do know it's run by the German gestapo 
He told me Americans are not as smart as Germans because in Germany people also speak English. Must be hard for him to have a forum filled with stupid Americans.
He told me Americans are not as smart as Germans because in Germany people also speak English. Must be hard for him to have a forum filled with stupid Americans.
If you are lucky, you'll get a banned for life like me. You do know it's run by the German gestapo
LOL it said 7 days but I have a feeling if I go back it won't be long before I get banned for life. It does seem to be run by some fascist regime. I took two semesters of Mandarin Chinese in college if that counts for anything.
Have to tread really lightly over there. It is hard to say who is ever at fault though because I swear all the incriminating posts just get deleted so nobody knows where 'the line' is so they don't cross it.
First rule of fascism, make everything that makes you look bad disappear. The victor gets to write history.
Most around here speak Spanish, a side benefit of living a very short distance from the Mexican border but I also speak fluent Canadian. The reason he speaks English is because Dwayne lives in a town with a huge U.S. military base, U.S. Army Garrison Grafenwoehr, the largest NATO training site in Europe in a town of 6,500. I know this because my neighbor worked there for 2 years doing training. He responded back to me in German, I responded back to him in Spanish, thank goodness for Google Translate.
The good thing about Germany is we got to write that history in 1945.
The good thing about Germany is we got to write that history in 1945.
heh, countries that lost to the US in war seem to do good. Reminds me of an old Peter Sellers movie, The Mouse That Roared.
I've worked with several different people from Western Europe, and English is taught as a second language in several countries.
Some people simply shouldn't be forum administrators/moderators..it's actually a special skill, and requires an open mind, and teflon skin. Oddly, most of the drama I've experienced in fora moderation and administration was from the backroom team and NOT the members! :sad2:
He is not in the U.S. and not bound by U.S. laws but here, it's actually to the benefit of the forum owner not to moderate too closely and here's why. I have a forum I setup for a community that I no longer live in. This is a place were people rant about anything that annoys them. So I get a letter from attorney for the community manager saying that I have to remove posts that are lies about them. Because I don't moderate the forum for content, I have no idea what's a lie and what is true, it's not TOU violation, I'm not liable, so wrote back, quoted the law and said if I edit/moderate it, I'm liable so I chose not to moderate and they should go after the poster and get a court order for me to change it. There's a law that I can't remember now that isolates what people post from ISPs, server owners, forum owners and such as long as they don't edit or control content.
Then with banning, you have the issue of discrimination, freedom of speech and since a forum is for public, non-exclusive use, banning someone for comments he makes can be considered a form of discrimination. Hence my filing with the ISP in Germany against Dwayne for discrimination and public humiliation. They took that pretty seriously because the police came with a few squad cars, parked outside his office while they interrogated him for about an hour. Now imagine this in a small town of 6,500 people. It was not my intent, I had no idea they would take this so seriously in Germany because in the U.S., it would have likely been a civil matter unless you can prove it's hate crime. I never said it was racial or a hate crime, it was just discrimination against me for expressing my opinion. I never even talked to anyone in Germany, just an email to the ISP. If he was in the U.S. would have had my attorney start pre-litigation, send a demand letter and if he didn't cooperate, file a lawsuit in superior court hoping that the legal fees just to answer the suit would change his mind.
Then with banning, you have the issue of discrimination, freedom of speech and since a forum is for public, non-exclusive use, banning someone for comments he makes can be considered a form of discrimination. Hence my filing with the ISP in Germany against Dwayne for discrimination and public humiliation. They took that pretty seriously because the police came with a few squad cars, parked outside his office while they interrogated him for about an hour. Now imagine this in a small town of 6,500 people. It was not my intent, I had no idea they would take this so seriously in Germany because in the U.S., it would have likely been a civil matter unless you can prove it's hate crime. I never said it was racial or a hate crime, it was just discrimination against me for expressing my opinion. I never even talked to anyone in Germany, just an email to the ISP. If he was in the U.S. would have had my attorney start pre-litigation, send a demand letter and if he didn't cooperate, file a lawsuit in superior court hoping that the legal fees just to answer the suit would change his mind.
Wow, no wonder he's so mad, well, I dunno all the laws here and there, it is his forum, he chooses who joins and who doesn't but that doesn't necessarily mean you get to control what people say. It's not your problem if Germany takes something like that so seriously. I honestly would have been pretty pissed also but hey, if you don't want to put up with the BS, don't run a forum, pretty simple.
I think you mean the CDA, and it was amended to shield service providers (in this instance, forum staff) from becoming 'publishers' merely by performing moderation and administrative duties. Specifically, 'Section 230' was added:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communications_Decency_Act
Forums are run mostly by private individuals, and membership TOS that you agree to when registering usually include language that states your membership and content is at the leisure of your host. IOW, no shoes, no shirt, no service. Yes, it's discrimination, because I love going barefoot! (I almost never go shirtless!)
Oh he was pissed, an I agree with him and I would have been pissed too, like I said, not my intent. My intent was to have the ISP tell him you have discrimination complaints, deal with it. I offered to talk the local police, even meeting with them in person as I was traveling to Berlin on vacation anyway, it was declined. What I don't understand is how did he learn so many U.S. expletives learning English in Germany? Then for reason unknown, my daughter got a DDOS attack the following week, traced back to ISP's Europe. Not a big deal as it wasn't significant enough to even slow the site down, and 2 minutes setting up rules blocked it anyway, just noticed the extremely high traffic. BTW, he owns a hosting company that has a bunch of servers, hmm, coincidence or not.
He called his botnet army to arms haha, too bad he brought a knife to a tank fight.
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If you are lucky, you'll get a banned for life like me. You do know it's run by the German gestapo
Post the actual quote.
Interesting story how that ISP complaint was taken so seriously and police were actually involved.
Hopefully it can be an example, be it extreme, for anyone to tread lightly online as well as in real life. Take a breather. Life is short. Don't get to worked up. Yes, private forums can have their own rules, but moderating should be done in moderation
and with skill. I've been an admin & moderator before. It can be tough. Opinions differ. Can't let stuff escalate. And, misunderstandings are easy. Almost 20 years ago I got instant-banned from an international chat server I'd been visiting and making online friends; when I simply and innocently asked one night if anybody else was constantly getting unwanted messages in Spanish. Spam from before spam was coined.
Long story. I was new to the internet at the time. My English wasn't that great. I had joined this group. Made friends. Everything was great. Except for one thing. I kept getting these direct messages in Spanish! Even if I understood what they were about, I wasn't interested in them, couldn't figure out how to stop them, and they just kept coming. So, being that it was a friendly place, I just asked in the chatroom if the same thing happened to other people. BANNED! (no warning) Instead of the owner/admin asking clarification about my issue; recognizing a new user may have some technicality/preference setting or - you know - stop some individual(s) from spamming everybody else; he instantly banned me due to racism (violation of TOS). I couldn't utter a second line. There was not an iota of truth to that claim about racism, because I even had friends in Spain, and I would have asked the exact same question if the messages were in English, French, Dutch, German, ... - except this spam was always in Spanish, so I included that when I politely and innocently asked if anybody else was getting unwanted messages. As far as I know a complete misunderstanding. The guy who banned me wouldn't hear it. No defense. No exception. TOS. Guilty until proven innocent ... For basically using the name of a language along with unwanted messages. I was not ranting against this or that, using whatever derogatory language or what have you, making off base remarks, jokes in poor taste. None of that.
I did get several online friends to vouch for me and was let back in a while later, but despite my apologies for the misunderstanding, never got an apology that it was an overreaction on the other end. I thought that was pretty low the guy couldn't man up.
Anyhow. It was a pretty frustrating and interesting experience back in the day, where somebody decides to cut you off from your online friends for basically nothing.
All I can say is, apologize and avoid other stepping on another toe. Or move on.
Hopefully it can be an example, be it extreme, for anyone to tread lightly online as well as in real life. Take a breather. Life is short. Don't get to worked up. Yes, private forums can have their own rules, but moderating should be done in moderation
and with skill. I've been an admin & moderator before. It can be tough. Opinions differ. Can't let stuff escalate. And, misunderstandings are easy. Almost 20 years ago I got instant-banned from an international chat server I'd been visiting and making online friends; when I simply and innocently asked one night if anybody else was constantly getting unwanted messages in Spanish. Spam from before spam was coined. Long story. I was new to the internet at the time. My English wasn't that great. I had joined this group. Made friends. Everything was great. Except for one thing. I kept getting these direct messages in Spanish! Even if I understood what they were about, I wasn't interested in them, couldn't figure out how to stop them, and they just kept coming. So, being that it was a friendly place, I just asked in the chatroom if the same thing happened to other people. BANNED! (no warning) Instead of the owner/admin asking clarification about my issue; recognizing a new user may have some technicality/preference setting or - you know - stop some individual(s) from spamming everybody else; he instantly banned me due to racism (violation of TOS). I couldn't utter a second line. There was not an iota of truth to that claim about racism, because I even had friends in Spain, and I would have asked the exact same question if the messages were in English, French, Dutch, German, ... - except this spam was always in Spanish, so I included that when I politely and innocently asked if anybody else was getting unwanted messages. As far as I know a complete misunderstanding. The guy who banned me wouldn't hear it. No defense. No exception. TOS. Guilty until proven innocent ... For basically using the name of a language along with unwanted messages. I was not ranting against this or that, using whatever derogatory language or what have you, making off base remarks, jokes in poor taste. None of that.
I did get several online friends to vouch for me and was let back in a while later, but despite my apologies for the misunderstanding, never got an apology that it was an overreaction on the other end. I thought that was pretty low the guy couldn't man up.
Anyhow. It was a pretty frustrating and interesting experience back in the day, where somebody decides to cut you off from your online friends for basically nothing.
All I can say is, apologize and avoid other stepping on another toe. Or move on.