I think this is the best online community for Magic the Gathering players on the internet, and probably the best overall resource anywhere for Magic players along with the Wizards Gatherer.
The only issue I have with the site is that mods are far too trigger happy when it comes to giving out infractions, or locking threads. This isn't a problem that's unique to mtgsalvation, but it is the one thing that does piss me off here
To me, mods are there to delete spam, stop trolls from abusing people, and thus contribute to better, more free discussion from all members. Giving people infractions for trivial stuff like double posting, and locking perfectly fine threads because for banal reasons is stopping the flow of ideas and goes against what the mods are here to do.
Mods, just wanna say, appreciate you taking on the extra responsibility, but just because you got the access to lock **** up or throw yellow cards around doesn't mean you're forced to use it. Save that for when its needed.
I don't know how anyone can complain about the moderators on this site. Infractions expire, so not only do you need to accumulate three infractions in a relatively short period of time, you have ample means of appealing any infraction handed out to a large numbers of moderators, who can (and have) reverse the an unjust infraction, and if you do get banned you have an appeal process available to you, and if you circumvent your ban you only have 1 week added to your ban, and as soon as one of the infractions drops off and you are back to two or less you are back on the site.
There are so many safeguards protecting the users from overzealous moderator and onerous rules that you have to REALLY be acting like an ******* to get banned for any length of time from MTGS. And I was banned for a year, so I know.
The only issue I have with the site is that mods are far too trigger happy when it comes to giving out infractions, or locking threads. This isn't a problem that's unique to mtgsalvation, but it is the one thing that does piss me off here
The thread you are referring to was locked because it had degenerated into "Cool story bro". The mods weren't being mean, just practical. Though I will say that everyone should be allowed to make their own version of your Prey Upon story. I might actually put one in my sig!
The moderators are only overzealous when they're doing stuff to you. When they're not, they're way too slow to act. Like with this thread.
Do we really need these "waaaaaaaaah, the mods are mean!" threads? There's helpdesks, private messages, and the realization that maybe, just maybe, you broke the rules and deserved an infraction. I know locking stuff like this can give whiners the illusion they're being "oppressed", but really...
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Retrodrome!
Hoi, hoi, u embleer hrair
M'saion ulé hraka vair.
Just take the infraction like a man. They slapped a 3-year one on me and I'm still going. That said, I'm still waiting on a word from Sene on a little matter that votan and I are involved in. If you earned it, you earned it.
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[I was permabanned and all I got to show for it was .... well, nothing.]
THEBEASTMASTER, I think you're confusing MTGS's moderation staff with reasonable, intelligent people. Flaming is not allowed. Infraction issued. - Galspanic.
I absolutely love the mods here. I am a member at several forums and never have I seen moderation that is so consistent. You are given the rules. Don't break the rules, and you won't receive an infraction. Break the rules and you will. It's simple and clear cut.
Why would he be joking? Not everyone has had negative interactions with the mods on these forums. I even like a few of them to be honest, and interact with more than a handful on a near-daily basis, and I have only ever had issue with one of them. By and large the moderators and admins on this site do a great job; MTGSalvation has a pretty significant userbase, and they manage to handle most of those issues rather timely and well.
The moderators are only overzealous when they're doing stuff to you. When they're not, they're way too slow to act. Like with this thread.
Do we really need these "waaaaaaaaah, the mods are mean!" threads? There's helpdesks, private messages, and the realization that maybe, just maybe, you broke the rules and deserved an infraction. I know locking stuff like this can give whiners the illusion they're being "oppressed", but really...
This, over and over and over again.
If you're going to call out moderators for being "overzealous" (a nebulous term, at best), you're going to need to explain how and why, as well as providing multiple examples. And if you're using the term "moderators" to encompass all moderators, which you have just done, you're going to also need to provide examples from each and every moderator outlining your point, and you need to find a far more productive method of raising the issue than posting in CI and attempting to cause a dramafest.
I've been lurking here for a while. From what I've seen, far more often than not, it's users who are butthurt about something that have issues with the moderators, rather than people with actual legitimate issues with a moderator. If you're going to make accusations of any kind, you need a solid and well-thought-out case. If you can't do that, please, spare everyone the headache and don't post about it.
Not at all. I've had infractions in that past that I disagreed with, challenged, and were reversed. I had an account that got 3 infractions because honestly I was acting like a prick and I deserved them, I made a gimmick account to evade my ban and got caught and banned permanently, and the mods still communicated with me via email and let me know about the appeal process when it was announced. I made an appeal and got denied, waited a full year to make another appeal, and it got accepted. At no point throughout that entire process did I feel the moderators were not acting in a fair and impartial manner, they were always prompt in replying to me and courteous in their tone. The only thing I regret is my timing since according to the new rules I only would have been banned for 3 weeks instead of 52 weeks, but hey, thems the breaks. You break the rules, you break the rules.
For a bunch of guys volunteering to do an overall thankless job (I've been a moderator on a few other forums and dear lord will I never make that mistake again), I'm not sure what much else anyone could expect from them.
Why would he be joking? Not everyone has had negative interactions with the mods on these forums. I even like a few of them to be honest, and interact with more than a handful on a near-daily basis, and I have only ever had issue with one of them. By and large the moderators and admins on this site do a great job; MTGSalvation has a pretty significant userbase, and they manage to handle most of those issues rather timely and well.
Thank you for your anecdotal evidence, but that is not indicative of how the entire moderating group treats the entire userbase.
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Originally Posted by Arcadic View Post
scumbag
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Thank you for your anecdotal evidence, but that is not indicative of how the entire moderating group treats the entire userbase.
I didn't offer it as evidence, I offered it as exactly the same thing as what everyone else has thus far offered; personal opinions. No one has cited any facts, stats, research, or real evidence to support moderator abuse.
The entire thing stems from one user being upset, either over infractions he/she received, or, as one other poster pointed out, over a thread that got locked. Where is your evidence? Where is anyone's evidence beyond personal grievances?
I enjoy looking at the Currently Suspended/Banned Users thread, as I am sure many people do. I can't think of a single instance where I felt like someone wasn't punished in a justified manner. Again, personal opinion and not fact, but those are at least my own interpretations. The rare instances where someone was punished too harshly are often addressed and more appropriate punishment dolled out.
You say it is not indicative of how they treat the userbase as a whole, but I have seen no evidence of abuse of power towards anyone. There was an entire group of people, some who are still floating around, who like to think they got persecuted, but at least from the outside looking in, it seemed like they were doing as much to attack the mods as the moderators were doing to try and deal with them. It is give and take; you are talking about real human beings with real emotions, not robots. Overall though? Where is the abuse of power? Where are people being treated unfairly? I, and I am sure a lot of other people, would love to see some specific sources of it because frankly I just don't see it. I've never seen it, not when I was an accountless lurker for a few years and not since I finally decided to make an account.
I didn't offer it as evidence, I offered it as exactly the same thing as what everyone else has thus far offered; personal opinions. No one has cited any facts, stats, research, or real evidence to support moderator abuse.
The entire thing stems from one user being upset, either over infractions he/she received, or, as one other poster pointed out, over a thread that got locked. Where is your evidence? Where is anyone's evidence beyond personal grievances?
I enjoy looking at the Currently Suspended/Banned Users thread, as I am sure many people do. I can't think of a single instance where I felt like someone wasn't punished in a justified manner. Again, personal opinion and not fact, but those are at least my own interpretations. The rare instances where someone was punished too harshly are often addressed and more appropriate punishment dolled out.
You say it is not indicative of how they treat the userbase as a whole, but I have seen no evidence of abuse of power towards anyone. There was an entire group of people, some who are still floating around, who like to think they got persecuted, but at least from the outside looking in, it seemed like they were doing as much to attack the mods as the moderators were doing to try and deal with them. It is give and take; you are talking about real human beings with real emotions, not robots. Overall though? Where is the abuse of power? Where are people being treated unfairly? I, and I am sure a lot of other people, would love to see some specific sources of it because frankly I just don't see it. I've never seen it, not when I was an accountless lurker for a few years and not since I finally decided to make an account.
If you would like examples of abuses of power, you can see N_S's banning. The mod team was, according to the person who leaked the information to N_S, going to get him suspended and did it by giving him retroactive infractions.
You then have not abuses of power but abuses of the userbase. You can see Protamins' asking Brandon to leave the site. Arcadiac calling N_S a scumbag and a coward, then being unapologetic for it.
These aren't personal grudges, these are clear examples of the staff either abusing their power or abusing the users.
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Originally Posted by Arcadic View Post
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Of course I agree with you Scott, but remember that people have different experiences here. So, for most people this place is just fine. But for a very small number of people it's a different story.
In this thread there are 5 people posting that have been banned at some point and another 2 that most likely have been banned. Their comments and "thankings" are going to color their opinions more dramatically than yours since you've had a good go here.
If you would like examples of abuses of power, you can see N_S's banning. The mod team was, according to the person who leaked the information to N_S, going to get him suspended and did it by giving him retroactive infractions.
You then have not abuses of power but abuses of the userbase. You can see Protamins' asking Brandon to leave the site. Arcadiac calling N_S a scumbag and a coward, then being unapologetic for it.
These aren't personal grudges, these are clear examples of the staff either abusing their power or abusing the users.
I don't really want to turn this thread into another conversation about the gutter and people like N_S, but I was a spectator when all of that happened. I didn't get involved in those threads or issues, but I watched (at least what I could, obviously couldn't see the behind the scenes stuff), and I know that N_S wasn't completely innocent in that situation. None of the gutter people were though; there was a lot of flagrant trolling and flaming surrounding the entire gutter closure issue, and I have to disagree with you about whether or not N_S was completely deserving of what he got; maybe a complete banning wasn't warranted, but like I said, a lot happened in a short period of time, and it is really hard to know everything that happened (at least from my perspective. You may have been a lot closer to the people involved and saw more than me.) If that is the case, then in that instance I may very well be wrong, but you cited one situation, one case, one person. Again, moderators and admins are real people, with real feelings and emotions, and that entire situation was very heated.
Of course I agree with you Scott, but remember that people have different experiences here. So, for most people this place is just fine. But for a very small number of people it's a different story.
In this thread there are 5 people posting that have been banned at some point and another 2 that most likely have been banned. Their comments and "thankings" are going to color their opinions more dramatically than yours since you've had a good go here.
I understand that people have had different experiences, but a lot of the time it feels like you are talking about people who are knowingly doing something wrong and then getting upset after they got punished over it. You have a whole camp of people who see that one person do something wrong, everyone knows what they did was wrong, yet when the moderators punish that person the people get upset and call abuse.
All I did was point out that Valarin's blanket statement was unacceptable troll bait. Even this Scott person tried responding to me and then said in the same paragraph that he has had a problem with a moderator. Not sure what the big deal is. People have problems with people.
All I did was point out that Valarin's blanket statement was unacceptable troll bait. Even this Scott person tried responding to me and then said in the same paragraph that he has had a problem with a moderator. Not sure what the big deal is. People have problems with people.
Yeah. I think we are done here. If there is an actual critique to transcend the "They suck! No they don't! They suck. No you suck!!!" that's fine, but until then this will not go well.
If you can be civil and provide actual feedback we are good. Okay? Nice.
All I did was point out that Valarin's blanket statement was unacceptable troll bait. Even this Scott person tried responding to me and then said in the same paragraph that he has had a problem with a moderator. Not sure what the big deal is. People have problems with people.
To be specific, it was a minor issue. He gave me a warning for not linking a card when my account was still fairly new. It was actually my fault for not reading the rules clearly enough, and was more of a personal irritation over the warning. I have never gotten anything beyond that single yellowcard, though.
And again, that serves as a perfect example of what I am saying; I got yellowcarded for not linking to the card I had a rules question about, and it upset me. Why? Because I got yellowcarded and now everytime I go into my memberpage it shows up despite being expired. I see it, and it annoys me, and that upsets me, and now I have a personal issue with a moderator that I haven't ever actually even spoken to since the incident happened (come to think of it I private messaged him, but he ignored it and never replied. That added on to my frustration with the individual.) But bottom line, new or not, was I wrong? Yeah. I broke the rules. I got flagged for it.
This is probably a dumb question, but do you guys run any analytics on the moderators of the site? It might help identify individual moderators who are "overzealous." In fact, I'm pretty sure you couldn't call any moderator in particular overzealous without some kind of analysis.
It would be interesting to see a breakdown of the following:
Number of warnings per post in moderated section
Number of infractions per post in moderated section
Ratio of warnings to infractions
Of course, these numbers might be hard to interpret correctly. It could be possible that one moderator in the section is just more active than the others. It could also be possible that one section of the forum is more prone to breaking the rules.
Can the analysis be done based on a number of infractions per report responded to? That might be more helpful, as someone who just infracts everything that gets reported would stand out. Then again, it could just be that crowd reporting only bad posts. And this wouldn't even capture posts that get infracted without being reported.
I dunno. Just spitballing.
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"[Screw] you and the green you ramped in on." - My EDH battle cry. If I had one. Which I don't.
This is probably a dumb question, but do you guys run any analytics on the moderators of the site? It might help identify individual moderators who are "overzealous." In fact, I'm pretty sure you couldn't call any moderator in particular overzealous without some kind of analysis.
It would be interesting to see a breakdown of the following:
Number of warnings per post in moderated section
Number of infractions per post in moderated section
Ratio of warnings to infractions
Of course, these numbers might be hard to interpret correctly. It could be possible that one moderator in the section is just more active than the others. It could also be possible that one section of the forum is more prone to breaking the rules.
Can the analysis be done based on a number of infractions per report responded to? That might be more helpful, as someone who just infracts everything that gets reported would stand out. Then again, it could just be that crowd reporting only bad posts. And this wouldn't even capture posts that get infracted without being reported.
I dunno. Just spitballing.
For example, the Art section has special rules regarding the way you link your artwork, and if you make digital alters you have to specify that the card is not for sale. Failure to do so results in an infraction I believe; there's no way to get around that. If you post something that doesn't meet the expressed rules, you get infracted. I love looking at the two alter threads, but the digital one is rife with infractions because people don't read the instructions. That doesn't make those mods overzealous, it makes them good at their job.
I think it would ultimately have to come down to what is being infracted, not how often. Bottom line, that would take an enormous amount of work and probably end up just proving the opposite point of what the OP wanted; that the mods and admins aren't overzealous, they're just doing what they are supposed to. I would be impressed if someone took the time to try and review that data, but beyond pouring through the suspended/banned thread (and that would only give you a partial view of everything since the only time they go in there is when they have accumulated more than three infractions), how would you even acquire that data in the first place?
The way I personally look at moderation and such, comes from a perspective of someone that tries to understand things from everyone's perspective. As a user, I of course fully understand the user perspective of things. Users dont want to have their own personal posting styles restricted by rules they dont agree with. Many users likely dont read through ALL the rules, and occasionally do something that is against them and get a warning/infraction. I would say its fairly rare that a user will intentionally break a rule, but it can and does happen. When people find a site they love, they want it to conform to the posting style they are comfortable with, people resist change, which is where a lot of the issues tend to come I would imagine.
From the perspective of the mods though, the rules are there, the rules are clear, and everyone is expected to take the time to sit down, read, and understand them before ever posting in those areas of the forums. If you screw up, you get a warning, if you screw up again on the same thing, youll get an infraction. Processes of appeal exist to help weed out borderline stuff, and can always be appealed to a higher up mod in cases of continued disagreement. The mods have, in recent times, tried to take steps to be a little more lenient in regards to some of the rules to allow for more mistakes by the users that wouldnt immediately lead to a warning/infraction.
At the end of the day, its simply a clashing of styles between users that want complete (or more) freedom in posting, and the owner/admins/mods who are looking to keep the site as organized, on point, and spam/troll/flaming/etc free as possible.
I personally like the site for how much time and effort the mods put in to making it as organized and on-point as it is. As a new user myself, I got a couple warnings and an infraction because I was still figuring stuff out. I acknowledged my mistakes, thanked the mods for letting me know and made sure to learn from those incidents and make sure not to break those rules in the future :).
In the case of thread closures, sometimes threads simply get played out. After a while of nothing new really being added to the discussion about the topic, often mods will simply decide that its better to close a thread than having to take mod actions otherwise that would lead to spam infractions and such otherwise (its part of the greater leniency that the mods have been trying to practice). Ive also seen threads reopenned plenty of times when something new was potentially being brought to the table about the topic and it was requested to be reopenned. Ive made requests and had them granted for several threads in the past in fact.
Are the mods perfect? Nope, we are all human, and there are processes in place to help take care of such issues. Otherwise from my point of view, the rules are the rules. If you disagree with a rule and can think of something better that will adequetely deal with the issues that caused the rule creation in the first place, then by all means suggest it. Its important to have such discussion in a calm and respectfull manner though.
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The only issue I have with the site is that mods are far too trigger happy when it comes to giving out infractions, or locking threads. This isn't a problem that's unique to mtgsalvation, but it is the one thing that does piss me off here
To me, mods are there to delete spam, stop trolls from abusing people, and thus contribute to better, more free discussion from all members. Giving people infractions for trivial stuff like double posting, and locking perfectly fine threads because for banal reasons is stopping the flow of ideas and goes against what the mods are here to do.
Mods, just wanna say, appreciate you taking on the extra responsibility, but just because you got the access to lock **** up or throw yellow cards around doesn't mean you're forced to use it. Save that for when its needed.
aka Prey Upon
There are so many safeguards protecting the users from overzealous moderator and onerous rules that you have to REALLY be acting like an ******* to get banned for any length of time from MTGS. And I was banned for a year, so I know.
You're... you're joking, right?
The thread you are referring to was locked because it had degenerated into "Cool story bro". The mods weren't being mean, just practical. Though I will say that everyone should be allowed to make their own version of your Prey Upon story. I might actually put one in my sig!
Do we really need these "waaaaaaaaah, the mods are mean!" threads? There's helpdesks, private messages, and the realization that maybe, just maybe, you broke the rules and deserved an infraction. I know locking stuff like this can give whiners the illusion they're being "oppressed", but really...
Hoi, hoi, u embleer hrair
M'saion ulé hraka vair.
Flaming is not allowed. Infraction issued. - Galspanic.
Why would he be joking? Not everyone has had negative interactions with the mods on these forums. I even like a few of them to be honest, and interact with more than a handful on a near-daily basis, and I have only ever had issue with one of them. By and large the moderators and admins on this site do a great job; MTGSalvation has a pretty significant userbase, and they manage to handle most of those issues rather timely and well.
This, over and over and over again.
If you're going to call out moderators for being "overzealous" (a nebulous term, at best), you're going to need to explain how and why, as well as providing multiple examples. And if you're using the term "moderators" to encompass all moderators, which you have just done, you're going to also need to provide examples from each and every moderator outlining your point, and you need to find a far more productive method of raising the issue than posting in CI and attempting to cause a dramafest.
I've been lurking here for a while. From what I've seen, far more often than not, it's users who are butthurt about something that have issues with the moderators, rather than people with actual legitimate issues with a moderator. If you're going to make accusations of any kind, you need a solid and well-thought-out case. If you can't do that, please, spare everyone the headache and don't post about it.
Not at all. I've had infractions in that past that I disagreed with, challenged, and were reversed. I had an account that got 3 infractions because honestly I was acting like a prick and I deserved them, I made a gimmick account to evade my ban and got caught and banned permanently, and the mods still communicated with me via email and let me know about the appeal process when it was announced. I made an appeal and got denied, waited a full year to make another appeal, and it got accepted. At no point throughout that entire process did I feel the moderators were not acting in a fair and impartial manner, they were always prompt in replying to me and courteous in their tone. The only thing I regret is my timing since according to the new rules I only would have been banned for 3 weeks instead of 52 weeks, but hey, thems the breaks. You break the rules, you break the rules.
For a bunch of guys volunteering to do an overall thankless job (I've been a moderator on a few other forums and dear lord will I never make that mistake again), I'm not sure what much else anyone could expect from them.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
Thank you for your anecdotal evidence, but that is not indicative of how the entire moderating group treats the entire userbase.
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I didn't offer it as evidence, I offered it as exactly the same thing as what everyone else has thus far offered; personal opinions. No one has cited any facts, stats, research, or real evidence to support moderator abuse.
The entire thing stems from one user being upset, either over infractions he/she received, or, as one other poster pointed out, over a thread that got locked. Where is your evidence? Where is anyone's evidence beyond personal grievances?
I enjoy looking at the Currently Suspended/Banned Users thread, as I am sure many people do. I can't think of a single instance where I felt like someone wasn't punished in a justified manner. Again, personal opinion and not fact, but those are at least my own interpretations. The rare instances where someone was punished too harshly are often addressed and more appropriate punishment dolled out.
You say it is not indicative of how they treat the userbase as a whole, but I have seen no evidence of abuse of power towards anyone. There was an entire group of people, some who are still floating around, who like to think they got persecuted, but at least from the outside looking in, it seemed like they were doing as much to attack the mods as the moderators were doing to try and deal with them. It is give and take; you are talking about real human beings with real emotions, not robots. Overall though? Where is the abuse of power? Where are people being treated unfairly? I, and I am sure a lot of other people, would love to see some specific sources of it because frankly I just don't see it. I've never seen it, not when I was an accountless lurker for a few years and not since I finally decided to make an account.
If you would like examples of abuses of power, you can see N_S's banning. The mod team was, according to the person who leaked the information to N_S, going to get him suspended and did it by giving him retroactive infractions.
You then have not abuses of power but abuses of the userbase. You can see Protamins' asking Brandon to leave the site. Arcadiac calling N_S a scumbag and a coward, then being unapologetic for it.
These aren't personal grudges, these are clear examples of the staff either abusing their power or abusing the users.
scumbag
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In this thread there are 5 people posting that have been banned at some point and another 2 that most likely have been banned. Their comments and "thankings" are going to color their opinions more dramatically than yours since you've had a good go here.
Those do get infracted the same way as any other user in case you didn't know that.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
I don't really want to turn this thread into another conversation about the gutter and people like N_S, but I was a spectator when all of that happened. I didn't get involved in those threads or issues, but I watched (at least what I could, obviously couldn't see the behind the scenes stuff), and I know that N_S wasn't completely innocent in that situation. None of the gutter people were though; there was a lot of flagrant trolling and flaming surrounding the entire gutter closure issue, and I have to disagree with you about whether or not N_S was completely deserving of what he got; maybe a complete banning wasn't warranted, but like I said, a lot happened in a short period of time, and it is really hard to know everything that happened (at least from my perspective. You may have been a lot closer to the people involved and saw more than me.) If that is the case, then in that instance I may very well be wrong, but you cited one situation, one case, one person. Again, moderators and admins are real people, with real feelings and emotions, and that entire situation was very heated.
EDIT:
I understand that people have had different experiences, but a lot of the time it feels like you are talking about people who are knowingly doing something wrong and then getting upset after they got punished over it. You have a whole camp of people who see that one person do something wrong, everyone knows what they did was wrong, yet when the moderators punish that person the people get upset and call abuse.
Yeah. I think we are done here. If there is an actual critique to transcend the "They suck! No they don't! They suck. No you suck!!!" that's fine, but until then this will not go well.
If you can be civil and provide actual feedback we are good. Okay? Nice.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
To be specific, it was a minor issue. He gave me a warning for not linking a card when my account was still fairly new. It was actually my fault for not reading the rules clearly enough, and was more of a personal irritation over the warning. I have never gotten anything beyond that single yellowcard, though.
And again, that serves as a perfect example of what I am saying; I got yellowcarded for not linking to the card I had a rules question about, and it upset me. Why? Because I got yellowcarded and now everytime I go into my memberpage it shows up despite being expired. I see it, and it annoys me, and that upsets me, and now I have a personal issue with a moderator that I haven't ever actually even spoken to since the incident happened (come to think of it I private messaged him, but he ignored it and never replied. That added on to my frustration with the individual.) But bottom line, new or not, was I wrong? Yeah. I broke the rules. I got flagged for it.
It would be interesting to see a breakdown of the following:
Number of warnings per post in moderated section
Number of infractions per post in moderated section
Ratio of warnings to infractions
Of course, these numbers might be hard to interpret correctly. It could be possible that one moderator in the section is just more active than the others. It could also be possible that one section of the forum is more prone to breaking the rules.
Can the analysis be done based on a number of infractions per report responded to? That might be more helpful, as someone who just infracts everything that gets reported would stand out. Then again, it could just be that crowd reporting only bad posts. And this wouldn't even capture posts that get infracted without being reported.
I dunno. Just spitballing.
Pristaxcontrombmodruu!
For example, the Art section has special rules regarding the way you link your artwork, and if you make digital alters you have to specify that the card is not for sale. Failure to do so results in an infraction I believe; there's no way to get around that. If you post something that doesn't meet the expressed rules, you get infracted. I love looking at the two alter threads, but the digital one is rife with infractions because people don't read the instructions. That doesn't make those mods overzealous, it makes them good at their job.
I think it would ultimately have to come down to what is being infracted, not how often. Bottom line, that would take an enormous amount of work and probably end up just proving the opposite point of what the OP wanted; that the mods and admins aren't overzealous, they're just doing what they are supposed to. I would be impressed if someone took the time to try and review that data, but beyond pouring through the suspended/banned thread (and that would only give you a partial view of everything since the only time they go in there is when they have accumulated more than three infractions), how would you even acquire that data in the first place?
From the perspective of the mods though, the rules are there, the rules are clear, and everyone is expected to take the time to sit down, read, and understand them before ever posting in those areas of the forums. If you screw up, you get a warning, if you screw up again on the same thing, youll get an infraction. Processes of appeal exist to help weed out borderline stuff, and can always be appealed to a higher up mod in cases of continued disagreement. The mods have, in recent times, tried to take steps to be a little more lenient in regards to some of the rules to allow for more mistakes by the users that wouldnt immediately lead to a warning/infraction.
At the end of the day, its simply a clashing of styles between users that want complete (or more) freedom in posting, and the owner/admins/mods who are looking to keep the site as organized, on point, and spam/troll/flaming/etc free as possible.
I personally like the site for how much time and effort the mods put in to making it as organized and on-point as it is. As a new user myself, I got a couple warnings and an infraction because I was still figuring stuff out. I acknowledged my mistakes, thanked the mods for letting me know and made sure to learn from those incidents and make sure not to break those rules in the future :).
In the case of thread closures, sometimes threads simply get played out. After a while of nothing new really being added to the discussion about the topic, often mods will simply decide that its better to close a thread than having to take mod actions otherwise that would lead to spam infractions and such otherwise (its part of the greater leniency that the mods have been trying to practice). Ive also seen threads reopenned plenty of times when something new was potentially being brought to the table about the topic and it was requested to be reopenned. Ive made requests and had them granted for several threads in the past in fact.
Are the mods perfect? Nope, we are all human, and there are processes in place to help take care of such issues. Otherwise from my point of view, the rules are the rules. If you disagree with a rule and can think of something better that will adequetely deal with the issues that caused the rule creation in the first place, then by all means suggest it. Its important to have such discussion in a calm and respectfull manner though.