Dear Moderator

[Braindead]

How can we all ignore a poster that constantly post miss information ?

People come here for correct information.

Maybe Tug should block posters that hurt the purpose of Tug !

Newbies come here and get confused .

Who are they to believe?

 

[SueDonJ]

If everybody who posted misinformation were blocked in any way from posting to TUG, the forum would contain half the info it does! This place is timeshare-related, and there's never been consistent information received or given from ANY sources - developers, managers and owners alike!

If you want to ignore any particular posters, simply click on their User Name over there <-- and then click on "Ignore." Also, regardless of whether you want to use the Ignore feature, you're encouraged to correct any misinformation with posts of your own as long as they are within TUG Rules.

 

[TUGBrian]

futher note.

if someone is posting blatantly FALSE information...report it and it will be deleted. (as well as correct the misinformation).

 

[Sandy VDH]

Several experience people had just set Ignore poster on their settings, but this does not help the new folks coming here looking for info.

This same person either has multiple logons or has in the past had different names, and then created new accounts with new names. Is that a violation of TUG rules?

 

[TUGBrian]

its only a violation of the rules if someone is doing it to post multiple times in a single thread (ie pretending to argue or support ones self).

or if someone is doing it to get around a ban.

 

[Braindead]

What does it take to ban someone?
Can we take a vote ?

 

[wjappraise]

its only a violation of the rules if someone is doing it to post multiple times in a single thread (ie pretending to argue or support ones self).

or if someone is doing it to get around a ban.

What does it take to ban someone?
Can we take a vote ?

Brian - That is the crux of the problem. There is a poster (Avislo) who constantly spews information that is errant, and misleading. He apparently changes login names (RLongwell, and others) to keep his postings from being flagged as errant. Some of the posters here have tried to protect other readers from thinking this poster is accurate, by adding on various comments, and gifs. These comments have led casual readers to think that Avislo is being harassed, which has led them to report this. This, in turn, has caused you to issue stern warnings to those who have only tried to help the community by their flagging his posts. Your stern warnings have the had the effect of making those posters who were trying to warn the community of the misleading posts, stop completely this "public service." So, now Avislo posts dozens of times a day, most with errant information, or at least of tangent, unrelated information.

It certainly appears that the casual readers did the community a disservice by assuming that Avislo was being cyber bullied. Nothing is further from the truth than that. It would be nice if more attention was paid to the real issues: 1) the muliple logins, and 2) the errant information posted. Or at least, if the stern warnings could be issued only after more than a casual reader complains, perhaps actually reading Avislo's posts. While the "ignore" feature is offered as a method, this does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to protect the vast majority of readers. And most readers are not going to "report" an errant post, as this type of behavior is a carry over from high school days.

We value this website and the interaction it provides. We also understand the task that moderators have, and most of us are not ambitious enough to take on that responsibility. So, please do not view this as an attack of the moderators or of your stern warnings. Please know it is simply an attempt to provide, as Paul Harvey used to say, "the rest of the story." Thank you for considering this.

 

[paxsarah]

I will come out as one of those who has flagged certain posts that served simply to harass or impugn Avislo as an individual rather than the content of his postings. I also know that a lot of the information he posts as factual is riddled with errors and is misleading, and/or doesn't address the question or issue at hand. The issue as I see it is when people move from addressing specific information in posts to ridicule and personal insults. There's nothing that says that Avislo can't be a problem poster in terms of his content AND that he's being cyber bullied, which I think he has been. If people can't stick to the content when critiquing his posts, leave it to the rest of us. This is a savvy forum and people will call out misinformation when they see it. A snarky GIF isn't going to help a newbie distinguish good info from bad.

 

[wjappraise]

I will come out as one of those who has flagged certain posts that served simply to harass or impugn Avislo as an individual rather than the content of his postings. I also know that a lot of the information he posts as factual is riddled with errors and is misleading, and/or doesn't address the question or issue at hand. The issue as I see it is when people move from addressing specific information in posts to ridicule and personal insults. There's nothing that says that Avislo can't be a problem poster in terms of his content AND that he's being cyber bullied, which I think he has been. If people can't stick to the content when critiquing his posts, leave it to the rest of us. This is a savvy forum and people will call out misinformation when they see it. A snarky GIF isn't going to help a newbie distinguish good info from bad.

Thanks for the opposing viewpoint, Paxsarah, it is an example of what makes this community strong. I believe this actually validates my contention. As soon as the stern warnings were placed and the "snarky" GIFs went away, no one is doing anything to flag Avislo's errant posts. Just read what he has posted in the past three days, taking them in context, and see how off subject, or downright misleading they are. But now, no one dares call him out as this would qualify as "cyber bullying" in the eyes of some readers. And those readers are quick to flag those posts as inappropriate. But not willing to do so for the postings that actually started the chain reaction.

 

[paxsarah]

I've corrected him twice in the last couple of days:
http://tugbbs.com/forums/index.php?...rogram-guidelines.254676/page-11#post-1995592
http://tugbbs.com/forums/index.php?...ovision-for-points-usage.254765/#post-1995379

I'm sure others have, too. It's easy to do it without fear of reprisal if I focus on his words/information and not comment on my perception of his intelligence or character. And the bullying posts I flagged (and there were only two or three) didn't comment at all on what he said but made fun of him as a person. It's very easy to distinguish.

 

[dagger1]

I hope you are not referring to "thumbs up" guy as making "fun of him as a person"... This was a humorous giphy "agreeing" with a few of Avislo's more nonsensical posts... I in no way meant to make fun of this person, only his "thread harassing" posts.

 

[paxsarah]

I'm pretty sure the few posts I reported were ones that used words to disparage him as a person without any reference to specific content in his posts. I once tried to report a post only to find that the mods had already gotten to it by the time I hit submit, so I've not been the only one taking issue with the tone. I'm not trying to be some kind of lone wolf enforcer or something, there were just a few posts that I felt crossed the line in the BBS rules, "Personal attacks will not be tolerated."

 

[dagger1]

I'm pretty sure the few posts I reported were ones that used words to disparage him as a person without any reference to specific content in his posts. I once tried to report a post only to find that the mods had already gotten to it by the time I hit submit, so I've not been the only one taking issue with the tone. I'm not trying to be some kind of lone wolf enforcer or something, there were just a few posts that I felt crossed the line in the BBS rules, "Personal attacks will not be tolerated."

Thanks, have a great day!

 

[wjappraise]

Here is a comment Avislo left where the OP wanted to know if he should accept a gift of 105,000 point Wyndham contract:

"Do not worry about the "Just resend before it's to late" chatter. You indicated that this was a Club Wyndham Access contract, there is no specific resort ownership. You own a piece of what Club Wyndham Access owns at their resorts and can book thought the Club Wyndham Plus system at the 10 month point, with some exceptions.

Credit Pool is done as a feature, you will be under their new system where you can change the current use year to a future one in the next two years. This can be done once for the points involved in moving them forward. Moving points to RCI can be a expensive proposition. Just use them in the Wyndham Club Plus system.

Would not buy anything else at this point until you decide to use what you are taking over on a consistent basis and the new Wyndham Club Plus website and associated changes are rolled out or until the end of the year, whichever comes first.

Before you submit the paperwork, use the point in the existing credit pool, if any. By report, there may be a chance that they will be lost during the transfer process. If you still have the capability to Credit Pool the 2018 points you may want to consider putting your name on the contract with them with them then just take over paying the maintenance fees."

The OP and no poster had made any comment about "rescinding (resending sic)" or "credit pooling", nor RCI. OP simply wanted to know if this contract was worth accepting as a gift? Is it cyber bullying to call this "off topic" and "misleading"? I apparently am not qualified to make that type of determination, so I will leave it to those who are appointed to do so.

 

[TUGBrian]

in the future, report such useless replies (or refute them in a reply).

 

[paxsarah]

Is it cyber bullying to call this "off topic" and "misleading"?

No, it is not. Although the OP in that thread did say:

So I am inclined to go ahead with it, but I saw enough "JUST RESCIND BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!" emails that I was spooked about even accepting the gift at no charge!

To which Avislo responded:

Do not worry about the "Just resend before it's to late" chatter.

And then there was this exchange about the credit pool, starting with vacationhopeful:

Basicly you are getting 105K points per year .. but 210K if your MIL 'stashed' the 2016 points with RCI or the did a Credit Pool within the Wyndham system?

Then the OP:

Also not sure about the RCI or credit pool questions.

Then Avislo:

Credit Pool is done as a feature, you will be under their new system where you can change the current use year to a future one in the next two years. This can be done once for the points involved in moving them forward. Moving points to RCI can be a expensive proposition. Just use them in the Wyndham Club Plus system.

So as you can see, Avislo was right on top of the conversation there. Perhaps you missed some of what was said by others in focusing on his post.

Regardless, though, I never considered any posts about his content to be cyberbullying. Only the ones directed to him personally. I can't even remember who posted what originally, because the worst of them were removed by moderators.

 

[paxsarah]

No one needs to convince me that some of what Avislo posts is very off base. On the other hand, some of it's harmless and some of it's actually helpful (although less so recently, but he did post a link to the Discovery Program catalog which I had never seen before and found interesting). As I said upthread, the fact that he repeatedly posts questionable information which should be corrected does not preclude the possibility of him being cyberbullied and ganged up on. The correction of the bad info is not what I perceived to be bullying, it was the posts that had nothing at all to do with anything he had specifically posted and picked on him as a person.

 

[Braindead]

In his first post responding to the original post. His response was.

If you like to travel, take it.

Response was appropriate. Later he goes all over the place

 

[dagger1]

When I found TUG, I was amazed at the number of knowledgeable people and useful information on this site. Interesting to someone new to timesharing as well. So interesting that I went back to the beginning posts (several years) and read them all, up to the present. That's where I first became aware of RRLongwell/lcml11/Avislo. It was immediately apparent that most, if not all of his posts were meant to confuse/disrupt/misdirect the original thread. Most were unintelligible as well.
He is obviously a cyber harasser, basically land mining genuinely interesting threads. Thus "thumbs up" guy agreeing with his nonsense, rather than spending the effort to "interpret" and "converse" with him.. Just my take.

 

[ecwinch]

The issue has been surfaced, the mods are aware of it, and some members feel the responses have escalated to the point of bullying. That is a healthy community dynamic IMHO.

So the question is more of "how do we move forward"? Hopefully RRLongwell/lcml11/Avislo has a greater awareness of how other members feel about his behaviour, and will take positive steps to address the concerns raised.

I think the "rest" of us should just move forward at this point in time. There is no need for this to continue to distract the mods/admins. I personally have decided to not react to his posts, and I encourage others to do the same. It is relative easy to post correct information without reacting to his post. And other members can endorse/reply to that post to help point people to correct information.

Serenity now (and no that is not a Firefly reference ).

 

[TUGBrian]

again, if there is an issue...please report it...after enough issues we will take further action.

unfortunately merely "not liking someone" is not something to report (yes its happened)...but ridiculous and convoluted posts that do more harm than good on a thread will simply be deleted by moderators.

given the person in question has already been banned once, hopefully he takes this opportunity to alter his behavior to prevent said issues from happening in the future.

it takes quite a bit to become permanently banned from the forums, i can count on one hand the number of people who have accomplished this goal. We make it a point to give enough warnings and strikes before this happens to allow folks to take corrective action and remain a contributor to the site, but some folks just love to push their luck and if someone is just doing more harm than good (or making unnecessary work for moderators)...its an easy fix!

 

[comicbookman]

I have to say, most of his posts distract from whatever thread he is posting in and are often flat out incorrect. It makes following the threads difficult and it is often extremely misleading to new posters and readers. I have used the ignore function on him, but the threads are still getting messed up. This behavior is constant and not limited to just one or two threads. It serves to diminish the utility of the TUG forums.

 

[vacationhopeful]

I have this certain poster on IGNORE ... for myself. That poster was making the TUG Forums annoying to read and I was spending TOO MUCH of my 'chilling' time posting correcting replies to their dribble and/or misinformation. I reported posts to the moderator(s) multiple times.

Sorry ... but MORE needs to be done. It has been going on WAY too long.