Unfair ban

[SotDRP]

http://thenexusforums.com/index.php?showto...7&st=0&

 

I was banned, for "flaming, trolling, and rating abuse".

 

Uh-huh. I am not exactly sure how ban appeals work, I am out of my element, so I'll just post it here, because if I PM or email it, chances are it will just be ignored and I will never get a response. If I post it here, then members of the community will be able to read it, and will, hopefully, be curious if this post is suddenly removed with no reason or explanation.

 

Firstly, there appears to be a three strike warning system in place - and I had made one post. Therefore, how can I get banned instantly? The moderator that banned me might argue, that I was banned for "flaming, trolling, and rating abuse" - three things, so if that is the case, then I will argue them below.

 

I will argue each of those three points. Firstly, a quote of the criticism that I gave:

 

I have given this file a rating of 2

 

Wow, this mod is terrible.

 

There are multiple points that I would like to highlight about how bad this mod is.

 

Firstly, the island itself. It looks strange - not only are the textures ugly and out of place, the island itself is as barren as a rock, and has some of the strangest terraforming I've ever seen. The textures on the houses and the ship look completely out of place. The entire island looks like it's out of some kind of cartoon. The storm looked like some kind of technicolor disco-storm, which made things even more ridiculous.

 

Level design for the dungeon is awful. I've played some pretty terrible mods, but this is just downright stupid. There is no "flow" between each room - they are completely random. The rooms themselves look like a bunch of square blocks slapped together - barren, and boring. Lighting is almost non-existent. Not to mention, the objects that filled these rooms made absolutely no sense at all - they were utterly random, and just made the entire thing laughable. Even if the entire dungeon is a non-existent place, it shouldn't look like some kind of creation of /b/.

 

I have lots of specific points on the level design. I'll try and stay away from comments on how strong the enemies were themselves - cause this could be effected by other combat mods I have installed. But honestly, all the enemies are extremely boring. There was nothing intelligent about their placement - they were simply placed in front of you, in plain sight, all the time. They might as well just had appeared out of nowhere right in front of you every 5 minutes. Essentially, the dungeon was more like an ultra-ugly gauntlet run, from Point A to Point B in one big straight line. In the maze, they were too scarce, and did not seem to even move much. Not to mention, the maze was boring as hell. Just cheated at that part, not going to spend 10 minutes wandering around an ugly maze with a maximum of only 12 polys on my screen, not including my weapon.

 

Oh, don't get me started on the end of the first quest, with the "lol lets spam lots of supah cewl special efects!11one". For the love of god, that was just stupid. It looked so childish, I could not really take it seriously - it's just as mature a person making a weapon with over nine thousand special effects attached to it, and releasing it as a "serious" mod. I was about to just ALT+F4, delete this mod completely, and forget I ever downloaded it, except I had the faint, false hope that the second part of the mod might be better.

 

I won't discuss the storyline, because there wasn't one. The 'storyline' in there might as well be non-existent.

 

In all honestly, I could keep ranting, but everything comes down to this:

Level design is poor, barren, and ugly - looks like blockland instead of a real dungeon. The landmass of the island has some of the most retarded terraforming I've ever seen - it looks unnatural - no, it looks like a bunch of sharp computer-generated spikes with ugly terrain and barren ground, completely free of rocks and trees and stuff. Textures are completely out of place, and do not look Oblivion-style, and in the case of the ground textures on the island, like anything. Monsters are boring, everything is a gauntlet run from Point A to Point B. No traps, no way to get lost (except in the eyesore maze), no way to get ambushed or surprised or to ambush or surprise. Only reason did not rate this mod a '1' is because there was decent voice acting - nothing fantastic, but most mods don't even bother.

 

Would not play again - I don't think this is even fixable, without essentially rebuilding everything from scratch.

 

Firstly, flaming. The forum's definition of flaming as given:

Flaming is...

 

Posting personally or generally insulting remarks towards someone else, or a group of people (examples include calling someone an "idiot" for having views different to your own or being particularly demeaning to someone who is younger than yourself).

Not once, do I make any reference to the author at all. To flame someone, you must make a comment directed at them - in my entire post, the only thing I "flame" is the mod itself - and that's called criticism, because I justify it with my reason. I do not even talk about the author, nor could I care less who the author was - if it was some random kid who's never made a mod before in a life, or a legendary modder, I would pretty much still give the same criticism. I have no ill feelings towards the author of this mod, all I wish to do is to help them make a better mod.

 

Secondly, trolling. Of course, trolling is making posts that are designed to specifically provoke someone into a flame war. Of course, my post is quite harsh - I really did not like this mod - and it could have potentially started a flame war. However, negative criticism could always start a flame war - a user posts something detailing how the mod is bad, and the author lashes out and calls them an idiot. However, that is not fault of the criticizing party - and although the author could be at fault, it depends on how the criticizing party responds - if they attempt to goad them further, then it could potentially be considered trolling. However, a single post is not basis enough for trolling - it could have been written with malicious intent, but then it could just be negative criticism. I admit, my criticism is quite poor and a bit harsh - however, I really thought this mod was that bad.

 

Thirdly, "rating abuse". This is not covered in the rules, so I am going to take a guess that this is using the rating system to bring down a mod's rating without justifying the rating. I think the low rating I gave was quite justified (although not justified very well, this is my first post, and criticism is not my forte). However, I am quite disappointing with how the rating system on this website works. The rating system states "if you give a very low or high rating, it may be removed if it is not justified". However, I see thousands of "10/10" ratings, with comments that just say "awesome" or "great", yet even ratings like "5/10" being removed, simply because they are low ratings. I can say, that I have not seen a single low rating on any mods with lots of ratings. This is very disappointing to me, because the rating system is no longer a rating system, it is a "praise" system, where negative opinions are shut out and the ones giving such opinion are terrorized by the admins. It also poisons the quality of work - if mod makers are never criticized, then they will never be given the thought that their mod could be better, therefore the quality of mods will eventually drop down to rock bottom.

 

Another point, that I would like to highlight:

 

Moderator Note:

 

Above irrelevant rating/comment have been deleted. This is all clearly set in the description, failing to understand or even read what a mod does and how it is set and stagged does not qualify a ratings trash and a page of irrelevant ranting.

 

Seems that your first post is also you last, hope you have enjoyed your stay with us, as it is now at an end.

 

Buddah

I am aware, that the description of the mod said it was "unique", and unlike vanilla Oblivion. However, this mod, it was unique, in the sense that it did not look like a dungeon, but some kind of quickly made test dungeon with random textures. I understand that the dungeon was meant to represent some kind of psychotic playground which made no sense, but instead, the dungeon did not feel like that, I saw it was a bunch of random low quality rooms stuck together with the same type of door. And my other criticism when it came to the island itself, and the monster placement, is still valid - nowhere in the description, does the mod say that the island is some kind of barren funky rock.

 

If anything, I should have been given a warning for not posting constructive criticism - cause my post was all criticism, and contained no constructive elements at all. However, from what I've seen, the moderators at tesnexus do not help people refine their criticism - they merely terrify them into not posting by threatening bans.

 

I am very well aware that I could be permanently banned from tesnexus for this - but if the admins are merely going to ban me out of spite or simply because they do not wish to consider their actions or admit they are wrong, then honestly, I do not want to be part of a community that is so biased and poisoned. I am also well aware that they might just ban me for having multiple accounts and delete this post off the face of the earth, but then I will know what kind of community this is. I want to have a serious discussion about this ban, and I want to know why you believe it was justified, or whether you believe it was not justified. In reality, I could continue as normal, I've already made this account, and I can already download mods, and doing this, I risk my ability to download mods as tesnexus. However, I would not make this post, if I felt that I could win, or at least help the moderators see the error of their ways and help them make this community a more fair place.

 

- Narks

[Lord Slyther]

They do it within good reason anyways. If it's not justice to you, why don't you purchase the site from Dark0ne himself, and have things your way?

 

It's simple. You don't like a mod, then don't download it.

 

You chose not to follow the Terms of Use, and you obviously did something to piss the moderators off. Well, if you're that serious in not coming back, that's alright. We won't miss you or anything, and beg you to come back. But insulting a mod or it's author isn't necessary. Even if it means whining and complaining because it may have a few bugs that crash your game for example. I'm gonna back away from this before this gets ugly.

[SotDRP]

But that is the thing: I feel that I have not violated any rules on tesnexus. Do you even read before you post?

[Lord Slyther]

Yeah, I read your post. You did something wrong, even if you deny it, or don't even know it. I don't need to explain it nor bother to correct you anyways. It isn't my job to tell you what's wrong and what not. Thanks for your opinion. We all appreciate it. Good day, sir.

[SotDRP]

So, you might as well just edit your post, and make it say "You're wrong, I'm right, no matter what", cause that's exactly what you just told me.

[buddah]

The open discussion of moderator actions is not allowed. This violated the terms of service you agree to when you sign up to be a member of this site.

 

Your new account has also been banned.

 

Buddah

 

Feel free to contact the site owner on this link if you think you have been treated unfairly:

 

http://tesnexus.com/contact.php

 

There is a three strike system of the forums, but you rated a file in the file thread and the terms of commenting are quite clear on this, read it sometime:

 

File and image database commenting terms and conditions

Please take the time to read and understand the following before commenting on any files or images uploading to this site.

 

Before leaving a comment or rating please be sure you have read and understood our terms and conditions for using the commenting system. We have a strict zero-tolerance policy for the breaking of our terms and people can and will be banned from the site without warning if they ignore them. Remember; ignorance is not an excuse.

 

The commenting and rating system is available on this site to provide users with:

 

* an interface to offer positive feedback on the functionality of the file in question based on the author’s initial intentions

* the ability to offer constructive criticism on aspects of the file that could be improved

* the chance to ask for feature requests and discuss such requests with other users of the site or the author

* the ability to ask for help in troubleshooting problems with the file in question

 

 

If your comment does not fit in to the above criteria then do not post. If you disagree with the content of a file on the site then do not post. Simply ignore the file or report the file for moderator viewing and move on.

 

If your comment contains text that is likely to personally offend other users of the site either in the language you use or the message of your text then do not post. We take personal attacks very seriously

 

If you believe that someone else’s post does not fit into these criteria then you are encouraged to report the comment in question for moderator review. Above all do not post in reply to the offending comment however good intentioned your post might be, even if you are the author of the file in question. This is known as “feeding the trolls” and “forum vigilantism” and is frowned upon by the moderator staff. You may well end up with a suspension from the site if you partake in this activity.

 

This site has extremely dedicated moderating staff who have full authority to edit and delete posts as well as ban accounts instantly and without warning. However the moderating staff cannot possibly read and keep up-to-date with every single comment and rating posted on the site. It is up to you, the users of this site, to help keep this site clear of the people who just want to ruin it for everybody by reporting violations of these conditions to the moderators, either through the provided reporting features on the site or via forum PM to the moderating staff.

 

It is in the terms of service, here is a link:

 

http://thenexusforums.com/index.php?act=boardrules

 

 

 

But this discussion is now closed.

[Dark0ne]

As Buddah points out the rules for the forums and the site are very different and these are made very clear in a pop-up that everybody has to agree to before they can post comments or ratings on the site.

 

I will however review your tl;dr case when I can find the time. There have been about two occasions in the past couple of years when I have over-turned a moderator decision.