I got banned from the forums after having been considered “too combative” for not taking it lightly that a moderator lectured me on unrelated forum etiquette rules.
I wanted to discuss a legitimate technical issue, which turned out to be coil whine - at the time I did not know it was called that. A community member offered some advice, and I asked them kindly whether they would like to remove a particular question which I’ve answered in the very previous original post. They became offended by the very suggestion of this and deleted their whole reply, including the useful stuff. The moderator stepped in here and gave me a petty little lecture on all kinds of behavior norms, which I one by one refuted - to no avail, the thread just got locked.
Ok, fresh start. Let’s open another topic because I’m not here to bicker - I have an issue to discuss. The new topic got closed within 10 minutes by a mod, threatening me with a ban if I open it again.
I thought that was kinda ridiculous, because I’m a Framework customer and I want to discuss an issue with my laptop, so I opened anothe topic. Sure enough, it got closed and I got banned for a month.
A month has passed, and my problem is still there. One day when I’m browsing the interwebs to understand my issue, I stumble upon another Framework forum post discussing the same thing. My ban being lifted, I jump into the conversation and confirm that I have the same issue, and I share my story of having been banned after trying to discuss this. As you might guess, a mod appears, closes this topic as well, and states that the real reason I’ve been banned is that I have… wait for it… FREIGHT FORWARDED! And proceeds to permaban me on the spot with the notice “too combative”! What the hell, Framework!!!
I hadn’t freight forwarded and I have no possible explanation as to why this mod was jumping at me like that. Anyway, let’s take to reddit to complain about this. Quickly, a mob of zealous Framework fans forms, trampling over each other trying to lecture me that freight forwarding is prohibited etc… I WAS NOT TALKING ABOUT FREIGHT FORWARDING! I was complaining about a mod accusing me of freight forwarding and banning me for this bogus reason! And guess what - eventually the thread gets shut down after inevitably devolving into a discussion of freight forwarding (to which Framework has a similarly bogus attitude, although that has changed slightly with them conceding to European single market regulations) - the Reddit thread gets locked as well and I get permabanned from the subreddit for “discussing freight forwarding”!
Ever since, I message the mods on Reddit every now and then, reminding them of the utterly crazy way they’ve been treating me, and the usual response is just a temporary mute so that I can’t message them further.
Does anyone else have a similar experience?
So, not sure how to say this on the Internet with kind intentions coming through, but that’s my intent.
All of the above sounds completely reasonable on part of the mods. Community norms are incredibly important for maintaining community cohesion. Unmoderated descend into hate speech remarkably quickly.
Essentially, someone helped you then asked a clarifying question. Instead of kindly saying “thank you! I think I answered that in the OP when I said [quote], but let me know if that’s not what you mean!” it sounds like you were a jerk to someone who was volunteering their time to help you.
Then a mod comes and tells you not to be a jerk to the volunteers helping you, and you try to “rules lawyer” the mod.
In the new thread did you mention that your previous thread was closed for no reason? If so, completely reasonable it was closed. Even if not, I think the mod’s mistake was not giving you a temporary ban immediately for being a jerk and not following community norms, not for deleting your second identical thread where you’re likely to be combative again.
I could go on, but at every turn you have blamed other people for shutting you down. The only common denominator here is you.
Tone is very hard to read over the Internet, so miscommunications and misreading intent is very common. This means that being misinterpreted is the norm in the Internet, and isn’t personal. Just kindly clarify your intent/meaning and move on. There’s no point arguing over the Internet, especially with someone in charge of policing content who doesn’t have any shits to give about replying to a wall of text telling them they don’t know what they’re doing.
Being a customer didn’t give you any special privileges or rights to ignore community norms and rules.
Take a break and try to be more kind next time.
Then disallow hate speech and take action on it. Easy.
Was I really? Here’s my comment to them:
And here’s their later response admitting that they overreacted:
They literally said exactly what I suggested you’d done: there’s no harm in repeating the information!
Don’t know what now to say to you, friend. Maybe also that norms are important for keeping spaces positive places for everyone, and being defensive and combative isn’t a helpful strategy anywhere in life, least of all online where there are no visual cues to help read people.
I hope you use this as a chance for introspection and growth. :)