Hi

I am a user of a forum and have been there for about six months, pretty regularly.

I have witnessed tussles with other users and the volenteer moderator, and the guy is a bit of an *ssh*le but he does not seem too bad.

He is pretty humourless and most of the regular members are teenager's.

However, I have noticed that after a while the people who he had the trouble with stop posting and go all quiet or leave.

When I ask them about it they eiher say he is a *ssh*le or else say he's wonderful?!

Now I managed to cross his path once too often, because this guy deletes post's he doesn't like the look of. This prevents the forum from working as it should, he does not own it and it is payed for by a big company and is meant to be a resource for all.

Anyway, the web site owner is refusing to deal to with him appropriately and keeps asking for evidence.

I provided him with a material breech of the rules by the moderator, he has been distributing what he thinks is my real name to them to try to 'scare' me out of the forum. He think's I give sh*t.

Both the moderator and web site owner have threatened me with bannishment.

In the course of a very long winded series of e-mails I have shown the web site administrator evidence for the following;

o The moderator lies
o The moderators bullies members
o The moderator divulges legally private information to other members
o The moderator deletes messages and threads as 'he sees fit', but against the general usage of the site.

But refuses to act.

Like I said most of the members teenagers who visit the site hoping to speak to a celebrity.

I find the whole scenario very worrying indeed and if I was that celebrity I would be horrified.

What can I do about it?

Any suggestions please?

Please...

There is nothing you can do if the administrator doesn't care or won't side with you. Its his or her website and forum and they can do what they want. Based on what you've described, you've taken all the steps you can take to address the matter. That leaves you with two choices 1) accept the situation or 2) move on to another site/forum.

By the way, I'm not sure if you posted this here thinking Infopop might somehow have access to the forum or control over it. Just so you know, they don't. Its like software you buy and put on your own computer, you pretty much do with it what you will, and the software vendor has no control over it (outside of copyright infringement).

Doug
Moderator: Community Management
Captain Kirk: "Once again we've saved civilization as we know it."
Dr. McCoy: "And the good news is they're not going to prosecute."

Thanks Kimberly although I like Doug's signiture I think he had his 'I AM THE LAW' hat on.

If you read the post carefully Doug, the moderator is a fan volenteer and the web site is OWNED by a big company who farm the work out to a smaller hosting company, who then gave the job as moderator to a volenteer via what looks like a dodgy voting process.

But I have contacted Child welfare charities, who put me onto an internet watch group run by the UK police. However, they seem to deal with serious cases.

Although this is not a major issue for most moderatorated sites (if you don't like it go away), this particular site attracts people who are looking to meet their pop-idol on-line.

This gives the moderator total control over them. They want to leave, but they also want to speak to their idol.

I have documented his abuse toward me and his breech of privacy. I have also kept a record of my e-mails with the web site administrator. Who refuses to accept that there is a problem and has TOTALLY failed to deal with it reasonably.

As for explaining what a message board is well, would you like me to write one for GNU?

I maybe cheeky but I mean well...