pvc’s profile shows the reason for his suspension:
“This user is suspended until Apr 21, 2023 4:00 pm.
Reason: Consumed disproportionate amounts of staff time”
Annoyed the mod…and then argued.
Jordan
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Interesting thread. I am very new to this forum (January 2023?) and have found it incredibly helpful. Went from a complete HA cynic to a fairly happy user of some ebay Phonaks…all thanks to the plethora of excellent and helpful comments.
On to this threads subject…I just reread about a hundred of @prodigyplace comments…and I am confused…the majority seemed helpful, reasonable and polite. I generally found the comments to be of value and did not see any significant negatives…
Again, I am new, and many folks have been using this site for years…so my experience is extremely limited, but I did want to at least post my perspective.
Moderating a forum is indeed a trying task. This forum is one of the best I have ever used. Most of the forums I use are DIY in one form or another, and I generally find those to be the best as most of the users are pretty focused…and trying to be helpful.
Regards,
Ethan Brand
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Oh I would never knock the amount of work PVC has put into the school, it’s a hell of a lot work without a doubt, my point was simply that it’s freely available for anybody who seeks this information here on the forum, from anyone who wants to offer it, just reading through this thread, you can see that some were hesitant in doing so, plus newbies were being put off in some instances.
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PVC:This user is suspended until Apr 21, 2023 4:00 pm.
Reason: Consumed disproportionate amounts of staff time
====
Ok, now totally confused. The DIY school is about 90% of how I came to understand and successfully use my first real HAs. The DIY school represents probably the best DIY tutorial I have ever seen…and I have looked at hundreds in my 66 years …
I would be very cautious here…
Regards,
Ethan Brand
PVC left after some drama few years back, and tried to burn down the DIY section on his way out the door. After a hiatus he came back, improving both his content and his demeanor. The latter not entirely though and he managed to earn some discipline. Yet he still didn’t learn his lesson and continued such things as accusing others of being paid shills and plagiarists. Never any proof, never any apologies. If I was the moderator he’d have been banned permanently a long time ago. Instead they cut him a lot of slack over the years. But it appears he’s wasted enough of their time recently to earn a time-out. Is his stuff worth the aggravation the moderators have had to put up with? IMO, nope.
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Hi Dusty
Thanks for the insight.
I will note that it was the DIY library that first attracted me to this site…otherwise I would never have started using it.
For my own use, the DIY content is the basic reason why I use this site…without it…most of the other content is not useful to me personally.
Regards,
Ethan Brand
I’m sure you’d be the exception, most if not all of us use the forum for just about everything to do with HAs, there’s so much to learn in this area, new model releases, hear it first from right here, how and why things work, scholarly articles, news on what’s going on in the hearing world, not to mention the professional guys that contribute on a regular basis, pretty good insight on what their up to and how they work, nice.
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Sure I understand, I was just thinking you might be leaving yourself short not knowing some of the other stuff going on, as you can imagine there’s so much more to programming one HAs then software/hardware = first fit
But anyways all the best.
Cheers
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Hi… actually I really appreciate and use all the excellent content you mentioned. I am simply pointing out that it was the DIY library that got me here in the first place.
Regards
Ethan
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Just wanted to say I’ve been a member for a few years myself and usually check the forums a few times a week. I’ve had experiences with all 3 and frankly it was the the biggest reason I cut back posting as much as I used to. Those 3 in particular have been rude and abrasive numerous times in various posts I’ve seen including some of my own…
I’ve got a good sense of humour and usually most unrelated sarcastic comments are ignored but on the wrong day or when something isn’t working with a hearing aid and you want guidance sarcasm, petty comments or unhelpful innuendos about what you do, think or feel about the issue is unhelpful when they want to put a user down on makes me think constantly do I even want to post this here?
Don’t get me wrong I have seen some helpful posts from 2 out of the 3 but more often than not I’ve sat thinking why do they even continue to be allowed to behave in that manner. If I was a total newbie and saw those 3 interacting in that way I’d be put right off it doesn’t jive with the openess of the forum to me. This is a place for guidance, learning on a issue that affects many worldwide.
I hope the suspension gives them all time to reflect on their forum behavior and parhaps allow others to post more freely without hesitation. Thank you abram
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Ok got it, all good, yeah it’s kinda addictive, you go to one post and the next thing you know your on to something else and so on.
One thing you guys don’t see (that admins do) is all the deleted posts, flagged posts, etc attached to a user’s account. While PVC has been extremely helpful in our forum (primarily for DIYers), and while I respect his dedication to this mission, he has been an extremely polarizing person in the community, and as evidenced by his moderation history, has consumed a ridiculous amount of admin time … We admins have had many run ins with him over the years and it’s beyond frustrating that he can’t just show us the same respect we show him. We created a safe place for him in a dedicated DIY area where he’s the man and yet, he can’t help himself from stirring things up and occasionally being a jerk. If I had a way to restrict him to the DIY area, I would… But, I just don’t know how many chances this guy really gets… DIY is a topic only a subset of our community cares about, and there is nothing stopping pvc from finding a new home for his DIY school. He is welcome to post a link in our DIY area to his own DIY website but so long as he has general user access to this forum, I don’t think he can resist the temptation to engage negatively with our users.
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The thing about pvc’s offerings is that they are highly organized, easy to find, and you don’t have to play 20 questions to get answers. I agree that it’s the forum moderators’ total call as to what to do about anyone causing a disturbance, and the IGNORE choice should help most users avoid reading further posts from users they don’t like. I haven’t followed pvc’s recent posts closely, but he seems to have improved tremendously from what he used to be. If one is a Christian and believes in redemption, maybe everyone deserves a second, and a third (?), and a …(?) chance. OTH, from ancient times, thumbs down in the arena has always been a popular, safe choice! 
I liked @um_bongo’s suggestion of user rings, like Dante’s Inferno. Perhaps there should be a sin_bin level to exile difficult users to until they see the light and prove themselves in the lower depths of the forum.
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Yeah but that’s the thing, it’s good to talk about what you want if you ask questions, ya know it’s nice to have some dialogue, because then other people get to see what issues some people were having and possibly see/read the solution before posting lots of questions, when all you get as an answer is click “DIY school” and then from there goes off in PM, no one gets to see that.
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Why don’t you guys create a wiki page that contains DIY content rather than having to rely that person who hold stuff hostage because he break forum rules. It is not healthy to have this kind of relationship…
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Okay! Well, I’m back after a few weeks’ hiatus with family & friends visiting, so I’m late to the topic. I greatly appreciate, value and treasure the information shared on this forum. It is truly amazing how I can get an answer to a question in an hour or so here, vs many days of waiting to hear back from my own audi. We are very lucky Abram has created this community!
I’m all for freedom of speech, but when it devolves to snide remarks or bullying others here for posts, that’s no longer constructive. I totally get that a member can “re-invent” themselves with a new device/IP address and new handle, so all we can do is just monitor the content and take action as needed.
I derive SO much value and information from what I learn here that I refuse to let negativity stop me from a query or suggestion. I simply tune that out and always remind myself: I’m here for ME and the experiences I can share with others. Let’s party ON! 
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I’m taking a moment to celebrate the importance ofHearing Tracker in my life.
I’ve been a member at dpreview for 22 years. Maybe longer. It’s been around for 25 years.
Tomorrow April 10th dpreview will be shut down. Forever.
I feel great respect for the owner here. Thank you for providing this place that helps me learn. And I need so much help!
Thanks
DaveL
Toronto
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Thank you. I was hounded, insulted and bullied in a thread.
I have not looked at this site in 2 months.
I will look again.
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Welcome back,so when this happens you should report it, you can also “flag” a post, as the mods can’t read every post every day.
Cheers
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This is the key to a peaceful and harmonious forum. Instead of getting annoyed, upset, or responding, when someone is being snarky, people should simply report and/or flag the post.
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