"You people"? Really?

[Zaxxon]

If it is a permanent ban that would IMHO be a huge move against the community.

Any forum survives or not based on the community.

Amen to this. I missed this brouhaha, and finding out exactly what happened is proving difficult. Losing @neroden would be a big loss, regardless of whether or not he comes off as abrasive some of the time.

I don't think the mods get paid, and frankly I wouldn't want their job. I find it hard to criticise people doing voluntary work thats as unrewarding as moderating forums. By definition most of us don't see most of the posts they moderate away, God knows how much crap needs weeding out.

Also amen to this. I used to be a moderator on a much smaller site than TMC, and I understand that the job is often hellish. No stones being thrown from me--I'd just like to know what happened, and hopefully to find that @neroden isn't gone permanently.

 

[aubreymcfato]

I really hope the neroden ban is not permanent, but it seems so.
Also, and it is just as bad, posts discussing the ban shouldn't be deleted or censored.
anyway, I think this whole issue is something related to TMC owners and not just mods.

 

[bonnie]

As a former moderator of this site (actually the first mod, not counting owners), I thought I'd weigh in. I've been privvy to plenty of discussions in the past 'behind the curtain' and there's always more to the story than it appears on the surface.

In my years here, no one was ever banned for criticizing Tesla, NO ONE - only for violating TOS. (Look at footer on this page to find those if you're unfamiliar.) @neroden has always been upfront in his criticism of Tesla & this forum, def of me ... since prob 2013. So the current TSLAQ spin of 'TMC is just a shill for Tesla' is completely false.

I have zero idea why he was banned and it's none of my business. Warnings are typically given, unless it was something particularly egregious. (One that comes to mind was a member who stalked me across other social media platforms & personally threatened me, admins saw it and banned him.) And since I doubt Neroden did anything that resulted in permanent ban without warning, I'm going with he probably knew he was walking near the edge of the Ban Cliff.

And yes, moderating is a tough gig. I lasted three years and then resigned. I was either too heavy handed, not heavy handed enough, too flippant, too serious, accused of censorship repeatedly for moving someone's post over to the right area of the forum to mingle with others on the same topic, etc etc etc. The forum was just not fun anymore & I originally joined to enjoy conversations with like-minded people.

I'm sure we'll see Neroden again on one of the many social media platforms. Maybe you'll learn why he was banned from him. Maybe it's only a temporary ban and he'll be back.

If you walk away with anything from this post, it's that the reasons for a ban are really none of our business. We cannot see the conversations that went on behind the scenes and I can think of situations where sharing the reasons for a ban would cross some privacy expectations. Then you open a whole new can of worms with 'why did they tell us about this ban but not that ban?'.

Maybe moderators could have chosen different wording, but I just saw wording from a mod that had reached the end of their rope on this subject. Kind of like my parents used to act after I had one more excuse for coming in past curfew when I was a teen. (Sorry Mom & Dad! Still no regrets, though.)

 

[JRP3]

Though I did not see all the deleted posts or any behind the scenes exchanges, my take on what happened is as follows:
Most likely some of Neroden's posts were deleted for some reason, I don't remember any that were objectionable but again, I didn't see them all. Neroden likely felt these deletions were unfair and as many know he does not always react well to what he considers incompetence and he probably flew off the handle and attacked the mods. In the past he has described himself as "screaming" at Tesla service when they screwed up so there is a mercurial side to his personality. I've met him a few times in "real life" and haven't seen any hint of that but there is evidence online. I think the mods were wrong initially in deleting posts about the very real service issues and that led to Neroden getting pissed off and things spiraled from there. Generally I think mods should do less moderation of discussion other than obvious concern trolls, who unfortunately have often been allowed to linger too long and disrupt threads before their eventual, and obviously inevitable banning. Troll banning seems to have improved recently.

 

[schonelucht]

While I concur with @bonnie that I think it is very likely that the ban was not due to his criticism but due to other reasons, I don't agree that it is none of our business. As participants of this forum, we should at least be afforded the knowledge on why a prominent and valued member was banned.

I've personally been warned once by moderators that I should not continue every disagreement with rebuttal upon rebuttal. To just rehash the same thoughts over and over again against the same sparring partners. I understood what they wanted for me and adjusted my behaviour. Much of of that behavious I saw mirrored in @neroden 's posts. Indeed many of my earlier endless back-and-firths were with him. There are a few others that are guilty of the same thing on the investors forum, even some bulls beyond reproach. In the interest of keeping those people aboard, mods should let the community know how far you can push harping on every little thing that pops up with a stream of posts each increasingly void on information or original thought with respect of the original idea.

 

[Mader Levap]

For me not informing why neroden was banned is very counterproductive. Unclear rules makes bad place for discussion, since you don't know if you will be next. No, vague handwaving "he violated TOS" is not enough.

 

[Unpilot]

Of course moderating a forum is tough. And if a member is banned one has to assume they deserved it.

However when the ban hammer is used it also has to be tempered based upon who it is used on.

A new obvious troll....or a valued member?

Since I have received what I consider to be heavy handed dismissal of post's I know how that feels.

When neroden would get worked up I would tend to skip over his post's. I did not agree with many things he was passionate about.

I can see how a heavy moderator and a frothy neroden could be a volital mixture.

One hopes time will afford cooler heads to prevail.

Warts and all I enjoyed neroden's contributions more than heavy handed moderating.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

For me not informing why neroden was banned is very counterproductive. Unclear rules makes bad place for discussion, since you don't know if you will be next. No, vague handwaving "he violated TOS" is not enough.

To me, once the member is banned, it's between the member and the site administration. The banned member has no right to reply to public comment on the site, so the site shouldn't be making public comments about them.

 

[Xenius]

To me, once the member is banned, it's between the member and the site administration. The banned member has no right to reply to public comment on the site, so the site shouldn't be making public comments about them.

If your place of employment 'deleted' a coworker you'd known for years without any explanation whatsoever you'd be down with that?

 

[bonnie]

To me, once the member is banned, it's between the member and the site administration. The banned member has no right to reply to public comment on the site, so the site shouldn't be making public comments about them.

100% agree.

 

[madodel]

I was one of the original instigators in the service complaints. I had posts deleted which ticked me off but I gave up. What was most irksome was that some completely off topic posts were being plied by some of the moderators and a lot of others. To me those should be moderated, but not my decision. Service is a big factor in sales but it is now off limits. My own wife has lost interest in Tesla in large part because she loves the service on her crappy Lexus. Yes Neroden drove it too far but the horrible communication problems Tesla has self-inflicted on their service team is a serious problem and Tesla has made it impossible to tell them about it. It is incredibly frustrating especially since my experience with service is actually great. It is a shame to lose him as Neroden was one of the better contributors but the frustration of not being able to find out what was going on just pushed him over the edge I guess. The mods solved Tesla's service communication problem by just banning talk about Tesla's service problem. Strikes me as very ironic. Neroden should have just kept pursuing it in a more appropriate thread, which is what I thought was happening, even though he and I believed that it is one of the more critical issues concerning Tesla sales now and in the future instead of the size of shipping containers.

 

[jerry33]

I don't think the mods get paid, and frankly I wouldn't want their job. I find it hard to criticise people doing voluntary work thats as unrewarding as moderating forums. By definition most of us don't see most of the posts they moderate away, God knows how much crap needs weeding out.

Yeah. I moderate a group, but it's a piece of cake compared to TMC.

 

[Don TLR]

I saw everything he wrote as constructive criticism, not just that it sucked but here's a way to fix it. He is very knowledgeable and respected his opinion but did see some somewhat harsh replies but not enough to loose his value to this site.

 

[Fred42]

If your place of employment 'deleted' a coworker you'd known for years without any explanation whatsoever you'd be down with that?

You'd better be. It's none of your business unless the fired person chooses to talk about it. Management needs to maintain confidentiality.

 

[SSonnentag]

You'd better be. It's none of your business unless the fired person chooses to talk about it. Management needs to maintain confidentiality.

My vote is for 100% transparency.

I haven't been following the discussion in question, but can tell you this fact, when people ask me how I like my Tesla, I tell them I love it, but service sucks. How service can't be a discussed in an investor thread is beyond goofy. Service is Tesla's #1 problem at present and should be the top subject in any discussion regarding plans for Tesla's future and investor relations.

OK, I've said my 2 cents. Carry on.

 

[JRP3]

The mods solved Tesla's service communication problem by just banning talk about Tesla's service problem.

I have to point out that the service thread has been unlocked so discussion may continue.

 

[Buckminster]

Root cause of all this is that we have just one general thread. Without a tough approach, we get too many posts on one thread. I would suggest increasing to a few threads - if we can find a way to segregate the discussion.

 

[bhtooefr]

Root cause of all this is that we have just one general thread. Without a tough approach, we get too many posts on one thread. I would suggest increasing to a few threads - if we can find a way to segregate the discussion.

I'm wondering if maybe the idea of a general thread altogether doesn't work. (Splitting it into two didn't work last year, either.)

Maybe have a daily market action thread - automatically locking when after-market hours end, automatically unlocking when pre-market hours begin? - but other discussion goes into topical threads?

 

[jerry33]

Root cause of all this is that we have just one general thread. Without a tough approach, we get too many posts on one thread. I would suggest increasing to a few threads - if we can find a way to segregate the discussion.

The problem with this approach is that there are already more threads on TMC than anyone can possibly follow, and most every subject discussed has at least one thread already. Adding more isn't going to help. Papafox's thread is really the best market action thread. So if that's all you're interested in, then follow that thread (and I think there's a technical thread as well). The nice thing about the general thread is that it covers a wide range of topics, most of which have some bearing on stock price (although some are a bit tenuous). So you can read the general thread and get a good idea of what people are thinking about, without having to read all the threads that just might have something you're interested in.

 

[aubreymcfato]

I think nobody's here want an unmoderated forum, but everyone should be accountable, even mods.
Several time they deleted some of my posts, and that's ok, but (allegedly) permanently banning a valued member without the possibility of discussion and community participation and in fact with the "censorship" of posts who talk about him is too much.
Apparently we can now discuss this so this is a step forward.
A forum is good as much as the community who lives it: TMC owners give us this site for free and in return we populate it with good content, making it a good site for insertionists.
A community that distrust owners/mods it's no good for anyone, and transparency over rules and bans it's a way to gain and maintain trust.