Welcome back Stevex6

I agree with everything @GDJMSP said. In my opinion his stance and actions are spot-on. I have Administered several Forums/Message Boards myself and am familiar with the problems involved. I came to this Forum to discuss Ancient Coins with fellow enthusiasts -- that is all.

 

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I agree completely.

 

I have one quick question. It's been stated in this thread that Steve was told his suspension would last two months. Is that an accurate statement? If it is accurate, fair is fair and you should honor your word. A month has passed and Steve should be reinstated.

Phil Davis

 

What you missed, because nobody wants to say it, is that the scenario probably looks like this.

1) Steve had one alias, and while banned, he created more aliases.
2) Steve was running more than one membership alias, and while doing his time, he used them to get around the ban.....and the ban was extended.
3) Both of the above.

Thus the sock puppet references.

btw You will note that someone keeps creating new aliases, posting to this thread and they keep getting erased.

 

The person who keeps creating new aliases has been around for a while, since long before Steve was banned and seems to be a separate poster. If you search for "troll" you will probably find several references to him where he's popped up on various posts and quickly been banned.

 

This is not true. Steve did not create new user names. Steve is just a few steps above Luddite and wouldn't know a proxy server from a potato.

 

I did consider the possibility that Steve has been creating socks, which is guaranteed to result in perma-ban if detected. That's standard on any forum I've been involved with; a policy I support 100% btw. On certain other non-numismatic forums where the issue is rather more acute my radar for socks and zombies is pretty well-tuned. It hasn't needed to be here, so I guess I just prefer to think innocent till proven guilty in this case. From my vantage point, this starts to feel like soccer, where the refs add on secret minutes at the end of the match at their whim.

 

This only removes fairness and impartiality if irrelevant considerations are brought to bear. You mentioned some good examples: a member being a personal friend of yours, or the personal likes and dislikes of particular members. I don't think a sizeable past contribution to the community, or the positive side of the contribution being inherently rule-risky, are irrelevant factors. I would hope that an established member who has made many valuable contributions would be treated somewhat differently from a new member who behaves badly in the same way. In practice, most justice systems do take these kinds of things into consideration... especially when the decision concerns whether or not to eject someone from the community.

Just to be clear, I wasn't suggesting taking into account the "popularity" of a member, just the indisputable facts about the size & value of his contribution.

That's an interesting issue. Is Coin Talk a private enterprise, owned by the owner of the domain name? Or is it more like a co-op, constituted by the contributions of its members, and so partly owned by them? A Canadian perspective might be a bit different on this. (Note that a member of a co-op who owns a key resource might mistakenly claim to own the whole shebang.)

But I don't think this matters much in practice, because the rules are very good ones, and the admins are clearly striving to do what's best for the community.

If that's true – with Steve's relevant positive contributions taken into consideration – then I'd have nothing more to say on the matter. Of course, I can't know that, so I'm just hoping the admins will indeed take those things into consideration.

And again, thank you for your work on this great site.

 

TL;DR alts are a bad idea and don't provide anonymity.

Unless you're running a Virtual Private Network, the mods/admin have system tools to see which IP address the users are sending from. An alt account won't hide your identity.

Knowing this, about a year back, i created an alt to make fun of a new member claiming to have dug up ancient coins that were obviously fake. He was lying and obtuse, so i thought it was warranted; still a violation of the rules and i accepted my temporary suspension.

The Admin rules described remind me of The Peace Officer Standard Training Council. If a sworn Officer or Dispatcher violates POST standards/rules or breaks a law, the council will convene and execute punishment based off the severity. These punishments are governed by guidelines, but all situations are unique, so punishment becones discretionary given the evidence and circumstances at hand. I don't think there's a better way.

The only difference is tranparency. The public has the right to every detail or to even sit in on the council meeting. But, that is public safety, funded by taxpayers and guided by The Freedom of Information Act. This is a private forum. I understand the lack of transparency, but miss Steve.

 

Absolutely a possibility. But when you watch enough soccer, you also know you can't hear and see everything said on the field. Sometimes the refs don't like all the time wasted off the clock because someone deliberately keeps taking dives.

Cheers.

 

Resorting to a claim of "personal privacy" in response to my question is completely disingenuous. Steve's communications to the mods are indeed subject to privacy concerns and can only properly be revealed by Steve... but communications from the mods to Steve belong to the mods and can be revealed at your discretion without breaching Steve's privacy in any way.

 

Here we have two contradictory statements. The first is a lie. Members most certainly do have several choices on their ballots. The term 'Vote with Your Feet' means you can leave if you think CT no longer satisfies your needs. There are other coin venues. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. If this one is offensive (because of Steve, administration policies or anything else) - vote. I will miss hearing from those of you whose decision differs from mine.

On the other end members also could step up and vote for the administration and do what they can do make the ancient section of Coin Talk an even more valuable resource than it was when Steve was driven to post things about coins others might find of interest. Since he has been gone discussions have fallen off in my book but those lurkers and supporters among you could step up and make CT what you think might be of value. Posting or no posting is probably more beneficial than anything you can do with cash making you a Supporter. Lurking and walking are close relatives. Will those who stop participating here be offset by fresh blood willing to fill the void left by those who stop or cut back their willingness to help? Time will tell.

Summary:
Please do one:
1. Leave
2. Lurk
3. Maintain the status quo
4. Try to make this a better place than it was before all this ugliness ruined what we once had here.

My choice will not be #3. If most of the people who make this a good place to spend time choose #1, there will be nothing to see for those of us who choose #2. Are there any who will vote #4?

For the record: I apologize for what I did when I suggested Coin Talk to a group of ancient hobbyists including Steve back in 2013. I had been a member since 2009 but found CT pretty worthless when it came to ancients so had rarely posted. I regret it if now we have lost the progress we had made.

 

I know it's none of my business, but why is the thread starting to sound like Steve's not coming back, when he was only suspended temporarily???
It really is important that new or old members contribute to the threads, for many reasons, and the ancients forum, imo is the most civil and friendly on this site.

 

I've seen all this before.



It was more interesting when I was a child.

 

I consider Steve a friend and I still hope he returns. But my choice of the four Doug presented will be Number 3 or possibly number 4. I have enjoyed CT and all the posters (minus a few lurkers or posters who try to make this something else). Whatever the decision, I plan to continue here (but I still want Steve back and posting).

 

I don't expect to be banned, for this or any other message. If I am my email address is edited. Any regular user can feel free to contact me by email instead of by cointalk messaging.

I am a moderator on the Reddit Ancient Coins group https://www.reddit.com/r/AncientCoins/ . Anyone here is free to join and post there under multiple aliases if that is your preference.

 

Haha that was you?? I thought that was hilarious. Sum ting wong right?

 

It would be interesting to see everyone learn the reddit system. It would definitely make the subreddit more lively.