Apologies

I understand that some of you have taken offence to the welcome message I was posting to new members, although I can honestly say it was nothing more than that - a welcome message, and I didn't see anything sinister about it.

As soon as COOOEEE brought the situation to my attention I stopped posting it immediately, and I was a little surprised that the big personalities on Ciao couldn't tell me themselves, I wouldn't have had ago at you. In fact, I would have been thankful that you had given me that chance and had enough respect for me to not try and get me banned.

Sadly Ciao have apparently terminated my account, so I would just like to offer my apologies to those who I have offended, and maybe I'll see you around Dooyoo!

See it as a rights of passage to be banned on Ciao due to small mindedness, just ask Aaron he will bore you rigid for hours on end on the matter.

Ciao is inconsistent when it comes to dealing with abuse (when they do get around to it), or anything for that matter, the result being numerous bad practices around the site. Dooyoo is better anyway.

Bit harsh being banned, thought you would have got a first warning first.

Wow Ciao are so good at dealing with problems! A minor thing like this, which is incredibly annoying but only that, gets you banned while real abuse is ignored! Strange indeed!

I've no idea what your message was, but a complete ban is a surprise.

Usually, it's a slap on the wrist, your account frozen and then they ask you (in very poor English) to agree to behave yourself.

You can console yourself with the fact you know what you did "wrong". There are plenty of others who have been kicked off without explanation.

I contacted them on Friday however I am yet to receive a reply, so I'll send another email later today/tomorrow. It wouldn't be as much of a pain in the ass if I didn't have almost £50 in my account at the time, and also I'm going to ask them for a list of all my reviews because I deserve to have direct links to them.

The way it was worded seems like there is no way back for me though, and what angers me more is how they accidently banned me last week (they admitted it was a big mistake on their part) - and now they're apparently permanently banning me for this.

Eh heh heh... sometimes Ciao is just so damn F-U-N-N-Y!!! I wonder if they even know it themselves...

I dont understand why you would of been banned either.

I have no idea what the messages were that you were sending but if you stopped after a warning from another member then I dont see why Ciao are being so tough.

Oh look...... lots of smoke yet I see no fire.....

(this is not meant to cause offense, however I REALLY do not think this is the place to be discussing specific examples)

Well I'm sure that was an actual attempt to cause offence, but obviously none was taken. Where on earth would the place be to discuss this matter if it wasn't in a folder called 'Ciao'? Afterall, the way most of you can look at it is as a way to see what your complaints have resulted in - the abuse system does work in its own little way.

Seriously, it wasn't.

The point of saying that is that it is all to easy for ANYONE (whether right or wrong) to complian about the way ciao have treadted them.

Yes, it can be justified. However, I have been on these boards long enough to have seen cases where it was not the case.

Which is why the rules here state that you are not to discuss specific examples. So rather than delete the thread, I posted.

Rotten luck Nathan - I don't know what it was you did (or they think you did) but it's a shame to lose you. Ciao's loss - as so often the case - is dooyoo's gain.

I hope they reinstate you soon. Shame they take action on stuff like this but don't appear to give a damn about copying and many other more obvious misdemeanors.

That seems so unfair Nathan, and I'm really sorry to see you go. I won't see you on DooYoo since I was kicked out of there almost as soon as I joined.

It really annoys me because there's so much real abuse which goes on in Ciao which just can't be 'proved' as such.

*Huggles*

MaryX

Just out of interest, what exactly is "real" abuse?

People who get a kick out of upsetting people.

Such as? I must admit I'm not a frequent user of Ciao and therefore don't tend to see much "abuse".

Personally I class abuse as:

Clicking Cartels
Abusive Messages
Account Duplication
Over and under use of ratings to raise/undermine the profile of people - in particular those who hand out E's to their "friends"
Sheep rating without understanding the content/reading the review

marymoose99 wrote:

People who get a kick out of upsetting people.

I'm not sure that's exactly abuse in its own right. If people get a kick out of that, then they must be quite sad. The actions which would lead to such people getting that kick is probably a completely different matter though and could be construed as abuse.

Saying that, upsetting people on Ciao is like shooting fish in a barrel. Ciao members are probably the most thin-skinned group of people I've ever come across.

marymoose99 wrote:

People who get a kick out of upsetting people.

Not sure I actually agree with that, there are an awful lot of people on Ciao who get really upset purely because they get a rating that is below the norm...i.e. H, but in truth that is most definitley NOT abuse in any sense. I think if people were less delicate and sensitive then there would be a lot less 'upsets'.

Real abuse is as Kels stated above and Ciao are indeed very slow to act on that sort of thing.

Not sure what exactly you did Nathan but if the ban was indeed over reaction from Ciao then you should maybe follow your E-mails up, from experience they have been known to be swayed....depends how much you want to get back on there really. Good luck.

drewboy wrote:

Which is why the rules here state that you are not to discuss specific examples. So rather than delete the thread, I posted.

I had no idea you weren't allowed to discuss specific examples here, I thought that was half the fun of a forum Anyway, if it is against the rules then you have been very fair in leaving this post up. Thanks.

I do appreciate everyones kind words, and I sent my third email off to Ciao yesterday but they seem to be ignoring me - when they banned me by mistake the other week they replied to my email within 24 hours.

EDITED: No specific examples- as already warned. rules can be found at https://reviewwritersforum.editboard.com/ALL-SITE-INFORMATION-f6/FORUM-RULES-THE-LONG-EDITION-t1029.htm

Well if part of your welcoming message was asking people to read your reviews then that may be why Ciao reacted but banning you was a bit harsh on their behalf when a warning normally suffices !

I wasn't talking about ratings Averilla, and if you don't understand that now then you never will.

I was using the ratings as an example Hun, sorry but I don't actually know what you do mean, however that was an example of how people can get upset over the silliest things and it can be blown up out of all proportion, especially of late........I blame the hot weather. Sadly as a result of pettiness like this you end up with people running all over the place screaming abuse. It is not reallycondusive as I believ Ciao get an awful lot of reports that aren't actually abuse, simply people 'getting upset'.........in turn this means that they probably have a backlog of real abuse to sort out.

Maybe Nathan, they simply got fed up with the silly little things and simply banned you as a result of one of these...if you get what I mean.

I believe Ciao get many, many reports that aren't abuse, but the trouble is that they then act upon these. A little bit of backbone and common sense from Ciao staff would see this problem eradicated immediately and also free up precious time to get on with making the site a decent place to be.

I mean, it wasn't Ciao that first decided that you couldn't mention a website in your "About Me", it was a member that was fooked off about something and wanted to annoy someone else/exact revenge. They interpreted some minor sentence in the T&CS and twisted it to fit the purpose they wanted. Ciao, for some reason, acted upon it and then all hell broke loose. I believe that the 'adoption scheme' fell foul to the "no advertising" thing (amongst cries of a rating cartel) and so did some punter's attempts to save a football club from going under. (Although losing the adoption scheme was no great loss IMO).

It only takes Ciao to do one stupid thing before it gets picked up on by the members and blown out of control. Take, for example, members' profile pictures: how many of them break Ciao's own rules? Thousands do. How many are removed because of it? About ten and all because of some idiot that's peeved off with another member. That's the mentality of the people you have to deal with on Ciao. I believe that a fair proportion (upwards of 80%) of the pettiness/non-abuse abuse (does that make sense) is as a result of some member getting aggrieved at a rating or comment because they have no concept of how the peer review system is supposed to work.

I have to agree with that; after all Ive yet to see a Diamond awarded review which has been made up of a review receiving a couple of H ratings. I think Ciao should re-look at their system frankly..