The Raptor RealGM Moderators are ruining the user experience

[Inception]

I can't speak for moderators at any of the other forums but I can say with confidence that the majority of the mods on the Raptors boards are abusive and power hungry. Part of me doesn't even want to bother writing this up because I've seen the type of responses people get around here, but I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and hope that the administrators take into consideration what I'm saying.

I've read the code of conduct and I understand why the moderators have as much power as they do. The purpose is so they can filter out all the junk and spam, in addition to their traditional moderator duties. While that sounds great in theory, the problem is that the moderators at the Raptors forums are using this ambiguous power to do whatever they want. Here are my biggest concerns:

1) The way the forums are managed should be consistent. It shouldn't matter who starts the thread or what the thread is about. If it's spam or junk it should be deemed as such regardless of who's responsible for it. Moderators and ex-moderators shouldn't be treated any differently than new members.

Case in point: I posted an extremely lengthy thread discussing why the Raptors shouldn't tank the season. In the thread I looked at the past 10 or so draft classes and pointed out that the teams that tanked hardly ever ended up with the top picks (viewtopic.php?f=32&t=1051066&start=30#p24894509). Shortly after posting this thread it was merged with an existing thread that was called "Anyone else psyched that we're gonna be awful?" and the name of the thread was changed to "To tank or not tank". Honestly, it's not that big of the deal that I wasted my time and my thoughts were buried in someone else's thread. The problem is... if those are the rules then that's fine but then those rules should apply to EVERYONE. It bothers me that a member like supersub can make a thread linking DIRECTLY to his own blog (which is something other people have been warned about), providing statistics on a guy like Bargnani despite the fact that there are already numerous threads on the front page talking about the same thing. If my historical stats on tanking belong in an existing thread about the Raps then supersubs stats about Bargs belong in an existing thread too... right?

viewtopic.php?f=32&t=1051974&p=24929225

Who makes that distinction and why? Why do we even have to merge or lock threads that contain actual content during the summer when there's literally nothing to talk about?

2) Moderators break the rules all the time. LittleOzzy, in particular, has made it a habit to advertise the Blue Jays on the Raptors forum. Most recently, he's made a habit out of creating OT threads (that aren't always labeled as OT) and then locking them immediately, with hopes of getting people to join the conversation on the baseball forum. The locking is something he only started doing recently after he realized that he can't enforce strict rules on everyone else and then break them at his own leisure. Despite that, the fact that he'll intentionally spam the Raptors forums with baseball stuff every day says a lot about him.

viewtopic.php?f=32&t=1052774
viewtopic.php?f=32&t=1053227

There are a lot more examples of this that I'd be glad to provide examples of if needed (assuming they haven't been deleted yet). I'm pretty sure if I kept posting OT Blue Jay threads I'd be banned after the third time.

3) The moderators are extremely trigger happy and jump the gun on closing threads all the time. This is negatively affecting the flow of info into the community and deters users from breaking news if they don't have a valid source. There's a reason why journalists come to these forums for scoops but if the moderators don't change their ways (or change entirely), that's not going to be the case for long. Case in point, user breaks a story (viewtopic.php?f=32&t=1052936) which is supported by other forum members that witnessed the injury to Ed Davis and the mods almost immediately lock the thread. When the scoop turns out to be true, no one corrects the problem. the initial thread remains closed and a new one is created in it's place (viewtopic.php?f=32&t=1052984). In that thread criticism is met with ridicule from the moderators who take no responsibility for their crappy work.

4) Moderators personal opinion should not interfere with what threads stay open. I know for a fact that some of the mods feel strongly about certain players on the team. For example, little Ozzy has gone as far as stating that anyone who suggests that Bargnani is a potential all-star player is delusional. That's his opinion and he's free to share it but his opinion should not interfere with his role as a mod. Can someone tell me what the difference is between these four threads:

viewtopic.php?t=1052487
viewtopic.php?f=32&t=860298
viewtopic.php?f=32&t=1052652&p=24955605

and...
viewtopic.php?f=32&t=1052752

If the last thread is spam then all the threads should be locked, not just the one that the moderator doesn't agree with. This sort of stuff happens all the time and like I stated earlier, there's NO consistency at all at these forums. When you're creating a thread, if your name isn't supersub or dagger then there's a 50/50 chance that it'll be locked.People talk about "clutter" and posts that add "no value" but what about a front page that's filled with locked threads, most of which don't have a reasonable explanation for being locked? How does that look to a new user?

All I'm asking for is consistency. I don't think that's an unreasonable request. And if the current group of mods can't handle that then maybe it's time to get new mods. Personally, I've decided that I'm not making new threads any more on those forums because it's not worth my time. But I still enjoy this community and the people that post here so I'm sharing this information with hopes that the Administrators will take a look at what's really happening on our forums. I've been lurking for years now and this summer is considerably less busy than previous summers and the overall quality of the forums has deteriorated over the past years. I'm sure forum post/view statistics with support my claims.

I enjoy these forums and I want them to be around for a long time. It'd be unfortunate if a bunch of power hungry mods scared away all your users or deterred them from posting here.That's what's happening and you can either act to correct it or wait and see what the end result will be.

[magnumt]

Please use one of the existing Threads already calling out the Raps Mods, or Contact an Admin or Global Mod (but not me, I don't feel like reading this long ass post again in my Inbox ).

Thanks,
--Mags