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I was recently suspended for the following in a casual chat room (spoilered, in case it is offensive):

@[name redacted] Regarding the stuff we talked about earlier, SE staff have now told me that I'm not allowed to add a bounty to certain questions because staff don't want controversial questions that point out misbehavior by staff highlighted. :D

This was a continuation of a discussion I had with someone about moderation abuse. Within seconds, I was suspended by the same mod who told me not to add the bounty, not by the chat room mods (as I did not break any rules in that particular chat room). Why was I suspended for this?

As far as I can tell, there is nothing inappropriate about this message. In my cynical view, it feels like a moderator preventing me from telling anyone else about how moderatiors have interacted with me, but I am trying to keep an open mind. Even still, I'm having a very hard time figuring out what's inappropriate.

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    Unless you received another moderator message from staff stating that, that statement is a lie.
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Aug 30, 2019 at 8:15
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    @SonictheAnonymousHedgehog A lie is a falsehood intended to deceive. What I wrote was my understanding and if it's wrong, then it's wrong, but not a lie. But even if it was a lie, even if I said "mods eat babies for dinner", I don't see why that would mean a mod should use their power to suspend me from site-wide chats after overhearing me say that in a one-on-one conversation.
    – forest distrusts StackExchange
    Aug 30, 2019 at 8:18
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    1. You were not told (in public chat) by an SE staffer, but by a local mod. 2. You were not given that reason by that moderator.
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Aug 30, 2019 at 8:28
  • @SonictheAnonymousHedgehog Sorry, it was my mistake to mix up mod and staff. The moderator gave me a vague message, and that is how I interpreted it (and how another person who I just talked to about it also interpreted it). So far, the only issues are that I made a lateral error, and reported a misunderstood reason. Was I mistaken? Possibly. Was the content inappropriate or offensive? I can't imagine, in any way, how it could be.
    – forest distrusts StackExchange
    Aug 30, 2019 at 8:32
  • It's worth bearing in mind that - as I understand it - chat suspensions are usually going to be less thought through than full account suspensions. If they get handed out to squash a current problem in the course of discussion in a chat room, then whoever's doing the suspending is likely acting in the heat of the moment without time for deep thought. That context presumably makes it harder to reflect on questions like "am I applying a double standard?" or "are my judgements of rudeness being biased because I disagree?". Some amount of injustice is inevitable and must be grudgingly tolerated.
    – Mark Amery
    Aug 30, 2019 at 10:00
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    Without knowing anything about the details, from a he said, she said perspective, the removal of the bounty seems bizarre. I'm not aware of any reason why a bounty shouldn't be awarded at any time, no matter how old a question is. The suggestion of "not wanting to draw attention to it" is biased and inappropriate. If the question is wrong in some way, it should be deleted. Also, nothing about the chat message here is offensive. So, none of the explanations for the moderator activity (which are just trust us, it was warranted) are in any way useful to anybody.
    – Jason Bassford
    Aug 30, 2019 at 12:00

2 Answers 2

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Your message was deemed inappropriate because after having a lengthy conversation with a moderator on site here that was stopped for going nowhere, you took it to yet another chatroom where that same moderator was also present.

That is something we've told you before not to do, so it earned you a 30-minute chat suspension.

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    So if I understand this correctly, if forest talks with me in the DMZ (which is where I usually hang out, instead of the Tavern), this automatically warrants a 30 minute ban in the chat, with the reason of it being "offensive"? And asking what exactly about this is offensive warrants a 30-day ban? Excuse me, what!?
    – MechMK1
    Aug 30, 2019 at 13:11
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    @MechMK1 I didn't mention 'offensive', that's your word. Your claim about the 30-day ban being solely about this question is wrong too, but we don't discuss other users suspensions.
    – Tinkeringbell Mod
    Aug 30, 2019 at 13:14
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    According to the title, forest was suspended from chat for an inappropriate or offensive message - namely the one in the question body. When asking for clarification as to why he got suspended, the result was a 30-day suspension. This seems to me what happened, and it seems quite an overreaction.
    – MechMK1
    Aug 30, 2019 at 13:19
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    @MechMK1 inappropriate, yes. For reasons described above. Taking a discussion from one room to another when being warned before to not do so is inappropriate, no matter if you switch the person you're talking to. All I can do is assure you, like in my previous comment, that the suspension was not just a reaction to this question, as I can't discuss the details of someone's suspension with you. As Geek just said, your timeline might be inaccurate too as there was a lot of conversation between this question and the site suspension here.
    – Tinkeringbell Mod
    Aug 30, 2019 at 13:23
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    Actually, I had quite a long conversation with him afterwards and I'd actually lifted that specific chat suspension after expressing what the issues in question were, so your timeline is inaccurate.
    – Journeyman Geek Mod
    Aug 30, 2019 at 13:23
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    @Tinkeringbell Is there a summarized timeline available or could one be provided? Would that be useful?
    – John Dvorak
    Aug 30, 2019 at 14:20
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    @JohnDvorak The summarized timeline for this question is that there was a whole conversation in chat that stopped, then was taken to another room, and resulted in a chat suspension for doing so. I don't think I can provide one for all events, like I said before we don't discuss other user's suspensions and a timeline like I think you mean would probably get too close to that line.
    – Tinkeringbell Mod
    Aug 30, 2019 at 14:24
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    “Can we please agree to stop talking about this” doesn’t sound like “if you don’t do what I say I will suspend you”
    – Floris
    Sep 1, 2019 at 2:52
  • @Floris We've warned this user before not to switch chatrooms if they are asked to stop talking about something in one room (like I said in this answer). At one point or another, you're going to earn a 30 minute chat suspension if you keep doing so.
    – Tinkeringbell Mod
    Sep 2, 2019 at 11:25
  • Why does it matter if the same moderator was present? I wasn't talking to him.
    – forest distrusts StackExchange
    Oct 26, 2019 at 21:54
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Full context would be nice.

For starters everything about that statement is incorrect. Now, there was a pretty long conversation about this on chat, and well, the meta question that came out of it, pretty clearly stated that, well that that wasn't the reason for it. It was an issue that had already been resolved and bountying it had no real result.

In fact the staff members in question had already resolved this.

Secondly we had a long conversation over the issue and this got dragged into another chat. Not cool. But I'm sure you're familiar with my feelings over that.

We have talked many times about how accusing people of lying is bad. Accusing people of lying with no proof is worse. So, here? The staff had nothing to do with it. There was no coverup. People doing coverups typically don't apologize.

So absolutely inappropriate.

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    "Full context would be nice." I agree. Unfortunately, OP has just been suspended from MSE for a month, and can't provide that context even if he wanted to.
    – F1Krazy
    Aug 30, 2019 at 9:29
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    "Accusing people of lying is bad" - is this aimed at OP, or at Sonic? OP is making an entirely different accusation - namely that a moderator is "misbehaving" in some way and then censoring him for speaking out about it - and Sonic's the one accusing him of lying about it.
    – F1Krazy
    Aug 30, 2019 at 9:29
  • Its referring to what is under the spoiler tag
    – Journeyman Geek Mod
    Aug 30, 2019 at 9:29
  • So I can find it later : meta.stackexchange.com/questions/332843/… is related
    – Journeyman Geek Mod
    Aug 30, 2019 at 9:35
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    There is a clear irony to stating "accusing people of lying is bad. Accusing people of lying with no proof is worse." immediately after stating that everything forest said was false, with no corroboration. Seems to me that you ought to suspend yourself by your own standard.
    – Mark Amery
    Aug 30, 2019 at 9:45
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    My understanding of the chat "offensive" flag is for messages that are blatantly offensive (e.g. they use the Seven Dirty Words, etc.). So while the message is inappropriate, it's not blatantly offensive. In my opinion, manually removing the message and kicking the user would have been enough; this wasn't really a correct application of that flag.
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Aug 30, 2019 at 9:58
  • Also folks, since we're not trying to cover up or anything, if my edits resolve your issues, well, feel free to clean up the comments yourself. I'm not really going to touch it.
    – Journeyman Geek Mod
    Aug 30, 2019 at 9:59
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    Looks like chat.meta.stackexchange.com/transcript/89?m=7880647#7880647 is also a relevant link here. After reading a bit of it, I still don't understand what the hell was going on here; I can't tell either why forest placed a bounty of some long-resolved question from 2018 about a chat suspension, in what way his motive was "misunderstood", or why you repeatedly refused to answer his simple question about whether, given that misunderstanding, it was acceptable for him to reinstate the bounty, while quoting a section of a message that didn't answer that at him over and over and over.
    – Mark Amery
    Aug 30, 2019 at 10:19
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    Well this happens a lot. And that it's a long resolved question from 2018 that got dredged up for no reason is relevant. I can't speculate on forest's reason for it or his insistance on making a fuss over that. It is annoying when folks keep trying to put words into your mouth or interpreting 20 words where there were 4 .
    – Journeyman Geek Mod
    Aug 30, 2019 at 10:35
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    @JourneymanGeek the "fuss", as I understand it, was Forest trying to understand your actions. That doesn't seem like a valid reason to suspend somebody for 30 days.
    – John Dvorak
    Aug 30, 2019 at 12:39
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    @JohnDvorak This question is about a chat suspension (issued, like Geek said, for dragging a discussion into yet another chatroom), issued before the 30 day suspension here. Just to untangle a bit, as it seems some people are getting confused ;)
    – Tinkeringbell Mod
    Aug 30, 2019 at 13:04

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