I'm unhappy with Cooba's performance as an administrator of Jazz2Online and would therefore like to request that his performance is evaluated by the head administrators of the website. I believe he takes censorship too far, and does not consider facts and background information before making such moves. The amount of reviews he edits is also quite absurd, and is taking away from the amount of reviews by such censored users. Many site members have stopped posting reviews altogether on account of the excessive rating removals by Cooba. As a long-time member and once highly respected user of Jazz2Online, I sincerely hope my opinions are taken into account by the owners of the website, and Cooba's performance is strictly evaluated, and he is accordingly lectured.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Lark.

I second this.

And FireSworD too, I believe.

Note: this post was deleted and later restored.

Originally Posted by Lark

I believe he takes censorship too far

I will have to admit I went overboard with censoring the site. I have already discussed this with FQuist, and we both agreed that my level of censorship should be toned down, which I will do. I also apologise for anyone who has felt offended by my actions.

Originally Posted by Lark

and does not consider facts and background information before making such moves.

I find this statement nonsensical. Firstly, I had no way of knowing what you call "facts and background information". I had misinterpreted the original comment, and thus edited it for a wrong reason, which I apologize for. Also, one of the reasons I edited the comment in question was Ninja's history of trolling in the pictures section, as well as other gathered information.

Originally Posted by Lark

The amount of reviews he edits is also quite absurd, and is taking away from the amount of reviews by such censored users.

That was pointed out a longer while ago. I had indeed noticed that it was the prime reason for the downhill site's activity, and thus I stopped the massive editing of reviews. Since I toned down the removal policy, I noticed that the review section has gotten fairly active again.

Originally Posted by Lark

Many site members have stopped posting reviews altogether on account of the excessive rating removals by Cooba.

Could you name me these members? I'm interested in knowing who exactly are they.

Originally Posted by Lark

As a long-time member and once highly respected user of Jazz2Online, I sincerely hope my opinions are taken into account by the owners of the website

Your opinion will be surely taken into account. Thank you for sharing it here.

Originally Posted by R3ptile

I second this.

And FireSworD too, I believe.

While I'm glad that you're expressing your opinion over this matter, I'm sure that FS can speak for himself.

Sometimes I'm so happy that J2O isn't a democracy.

I will hear any complaints posted, but I can only deal with specific ones. I can't react to inspecific accusations like "I believe he takes censorship too far, and does not consider facts and background information before making such moves" without examples. The same counts for broad claims such as "Many site members have stopped posting reviews altogether on account of the excessive rating removals by Cooba". They come without backing up and thus are very hard to validate, especially for anyone not paying attention to the downloads section (ie. I and most of J2O's staff )

There's the broader view of "there's too much censorship" which as a general feeling might be correct. However, it cannot be fixed - if true at all - without specific examples to start off from. I can't set any possible wrongdoings straight without having a starting point. Do also take in mind that much of the downloads' section moderation is based on these rules which are not made by any individual administrator (but for which interpretation by individuals may vary). It is very much possible that problems with site review moderation arise from the rules, not their enforcement.

I would further note that there's been some recent complaints about moderation in the pictures section (and your post may be related to it), specifically regarding some comments comparing cultural habits on a picture of Freelance's and naming a clothing brand on a picture of Tubz's.

I have discussed this in detail with some of the people involved as well as Cooba, and it has been dealt with and will hopefully not happen again. I think there's been some overreaction on both sides of that issue. It's impossible to not make some mistakes in moderation. Mistaking a clothing brand's name for an insult (especially coming from someone who makes offensive statements more often) is not hard to do - I would have done it myself in that situation (so would probably anyone who doesn't know the clothing brand). I would barely think of clothing when reading what seems like a random remark without knowing it. You can't do extensive background checks on everything you edit (we're not the FBI here), and thus things like that happen. That's ok. It should be possible to just calmly bring such a mistake to an admin's attention (that happened, but barely calmly or rationally), and the admin should be able to calmly and correctly deal with that (mistakes have been made in that. they will hopefully not happen again). If this thread is just a response to those recent events, I would say that's quite the overreaction and unwarranted. If it's not, please provide other instances of when things occurred.

It seems Cooba posted a reply with some good remarks about your post, it is unfortunate these got lost. They might bear repeating but it's up to Cooba.

Thank you for caring about keeping the site administration straight and proper. I think it's good to have such conversations in the open and not behind closed doors like usual. It's an issue that was brought up several times the past few days so I guess it's good to deal with it in a central place.

~ Frank
(Head admin, I guess)

I think cooba does a good job, he just takes criticism way too personally and refuses to listen, instead preferring to get angry and think everyone is turning against him. He does a good job as an admin overall, the problem here isn't what he edits so much as his unwillingness to respond to constructive criticism (even from other admins).

Despite directly telling him he should be demoted yesterday out of anger, I think he does an excellent job in the downloads section and should be kept with a reasonable amount of power but I doubt he has the talent to work with the other community related stuff, there's a reason why he isn't a JCF admin isn't there?

Originally Posted by FireSworD

Despite directly telling him he should be demoted yesterday out of anger, I think he does an excellent job in the downloads section and should be kept with a reasonable amount of power but I doubt he has the talent to work with the other community related stuff, there's a reason why he isn't a JCF admin isn't there?

I don't mean to be rude. But he is actually reading this post and I'm not sure if the way you talk about him is very respectful.

I normally respect anyone in a position of power if they are showing they are indeed fit for it, and right now Cooba's attitude is not very respectful towards anyone. To give Cooba the impression he can just use his status as an excuse whenever he's confornted is asking for direct, blunt and disrespectful replies.

Originally Posted by Newspaz

I don't mean to be rude. But he is actually reading this post and I'm not sure if the way you talk about him is very respectful.

I find this to be rather absurd. Are you implying that it's better to not criticize the actions of admins at all and let them feel free to use their powers in any way they want? Or that it's better to instead to say things like that behind the person's back?

Aside from that, this is a hilarious thread.

Originally Posted by Newspaz

I don't mean to be rude. But he is actually reading this post and I'm not sure if the way you talk about him is very respectful.

Apparently he doesn't need to defend himself, though.

Originally Posted by EvilMike

Apparently he doesn't need to defend himself, though.

To me this only illustrates your point about him not listening to or reacting on criticism.

Lark's point of people stopping reviewing because of the more strict rules is (mostly) correct, at least for me, but I think this is unrelated to Cooba. If I recall correctly the policy was at least as strict when Violet and Trafton were the main downloads/reviews moderators. There are J2O rules, which say that your review has to be detailed et cetera, and the J2O admins/moderators to enforce these. It's wrong to blame a specific member of the staff for these side-wide rules.

As for censorship rules, you probably know my opinion on that, but again, these are site rules. Being a JCF administrator myself I can assure you that it's not always easy to distinguish a tongue-in-cheeck remark (for example) from a personal attack. I do agree that Cooba - in my view, which may or may not be distorted - goes a little too far in his moderation, as illustrated by some edits in picture comments I got contacted about by FireSworD (who should still have both the original text and edited text somewhere, so he can illustrate these matters).

Originally Posted by STIJN

some edits in picture comments I got contacted about by FireSworD

Wait, he contacted you too?

I tried to keep this (now resolved anyway) topic sane, but really, how can one get more desperate than that..

I was hoping this topic could be discussed in a mature way, apparently I set my hopes too high. Too bad.

That's not a nice way to speak about Lark's and Frank's posts !

I was talking about yours, obviously.

Really cooba I do not understand why you feel it necessary to mock my posts (or however people want to call it) in a topic where your behaviour as an admin on J2O is seriously questioned. If you don't want to react, fine, but this doesn't help much.

Originally Posted by STIJN

If you don't want to react, fine, but this doesn't help much.

Your post didn't help much either, in all honesty

If anything, I don't understand why do you always to take part in a debate in which I am involved.

I read all JCF topics, I see one about the site and the policies on it, and since I am interested in that and also somewhat involved in it myself I decided to join the discussion.

If you want to question the value of my posts without any reason or arguments though, please do it somewhere else so the discussion doesn't turn into some "yes it is/no it isn't" discussion.

does his job well, but trashtalks too much with his "partners." thats my opinion.

and no cooba, dont even ask what i mean with partners. you know too well what it means. :DDD

Could this be considered backstabbing possibly? However, I think some edits and censorship might have been about Cooba's personal issues. Here's an example

Originally Posted by Vivando

Could this be considered backstabbing possibly?

No, not at all.

Originally Posted by Vivando

However, I think some edits and censorship might have been about Cooba's personal issues. Here's an example

Please... let's keep my/Snooze's "personal issues" out of this discussion

Originally Posted by cooba

No, not at all.Please... let's keep my/Snooze's "personal issues" out of this discussion

Since my first post about this got deleted im gonna say that i think j2o admins should behave like admins even outside j2o and i dont think trashtalking someone is acceptable for a j2o admin, and im sorry but that is what cooba does to me way too much.

A note: If you don't have anything constructive to add, don't post here. I'll just delete your reply. Mocking, personal grudges, etc, should not be used here. Some of Cooba's and Snooze's posts follow this bad example.

I wish to add that Cooba's original post has been restored and is worth reading.

Originally Posted by "Stijn

To me this only illustrates your point about him not listening to or reacting on criticism.

Cooba's post was deleted for another reason. As is apparant from Cooba's original, now restored, post, he did listen and react to criticism, even though he did belatedly.

Originally Posted by snzspeed

Since my first post about this got deleted im gonna say that i think j2o admins should behave like admins even outside j2o and i dont think trashtalking someone is acceptable for a j2o admin, and im sorry but that is what cooba does to me way too much.

Although a lot of admins are occassionaly guilty of negativity towards people, including me, in a general way I agree with this. A J2O admin should display a good example and should not involve him/herself into personal grudges and fights. Sarcasm/cynicism/hatred towards anyone in public is not a good example either. These are human traits, so they happen, but they should not happen too often. In addition to being a bad example, they're utterly useless for everyone involved.

Originally Posted by Stijn

Lark's point of people stopping reviewing because of the more strict rules is (mostly) correct, at least for me, but I think this is unrelated to Cooba.

I thought it was good to highlight this point another time. The rules were made up by the J2O staff, not its individual moderators.

Originally Posted by Fquist

I wish to add that Cooba's original post has been restored and is worth reading.

Cooba's post was deleted for another reason. As is apparant from Cooba's original, now restored, post, he did listen and react to criticism, even though he did belatedly.

I'm glad to see his original post was restored, since I can read it now. He actually raises a number of good points, and if that post wasn't deleted in the first place I probably wouldn't have even bothered to post in this thread.

It was silly for it to have been deleted in the first place, though. I think an important part of being an administrator is responding to threads or general situations like this in a mature way. Unfortunately, it's obvious from reading the later posts in this thread that this does not seem to be happening.

I stand by the point I made earlier in this thread, but I am also glad to see that cooba did respond to the criticisms in a positive way. Still, sarcastic, underhanded comments like "That's not a nice way to speak about Lark's and Frank's posts!" illustrate the fact that there is still a problem here with how cooba deals with constructive criticism.

I'm glad everyone's taken my concerns into account. I agree with the fact that Cooba does not take constructive criticism well. Rather than taking advice, he chooses to ignore it, in an overly-authoritative manner. I'd like to see a change to this.

From the perspective of someone who sees every review posted on J2O, saying that Cooba removes an absurd number of reviews is itself absurd. There is in most cases a very clear distinction between a review that is well-written and a review that is banged out in ten, fifteen seconds, and it is the latter type that Cooba generally derates, as according to J2O policy. Thankfully, most reviews these days seem to be of the former type, though I'm sure there are a number that Cooba could derate if he chose to be a little more strict but does not.
So, to my mind, the actual actions of removing ratings is not an issue, and is administered fairly. However, what I do consider an issue is that these actions, especially as it is usually the same few users receiving them, often due to their youth or unfamiliarity with English, may scare people off from posting reviews at all, given the necessary briskness of a rating removal notification. To this end, it might be wise to make an effort to personally contact anyone who has had a rating (or more than one) removed, and talk to them one-on-one so that they understand the rating removal was othing personal, should not be taken as such, and to make sure they understand what is expected in further reviews, and that J2O sincerely wants them to continue using the site and expressing their opinions.

Originally Posted by Fquist

(that happened, but barely calmly or rationally)

Whatever. I don't know what Cooba told you, but I never lost my temper at all.

I think he meant FS, not you.

I wasn't referring to FS, nor any other person in specific. It was sparked by things such a reactions in IM, IRC and also Ninja's comment on J2O.