Why am I suspended from the chatrooms of this site for almost a year? [closed]

Question

My current chat status is "This user is suspended on the parent site and cannot chat for 343 days." Actually I am not able to chat in any chatroom network-wide. Stack Exchange has a channel for communicating with Community Managers, but that has never worked (only one succeeded, some directed me back to post on meta of specific sites, and the majority have no response), and the suspension affects everywhere including the chatrooms of this site which I occasionally visited before (and the chatrooms of other sites I visited often), so I guess it might help to post my questions here.

First of all, some background: my suspension in chatrooms is questionable at least and unfair in fact. See what I described here and there. In July, I was discriminated by not knowing my level of knowledge in a chatroom of math stackexchange, by being censured by an owner. That owner claimed they didn't allow discussing basic knowledge. Last week, I happened to visit again that room for the first time after July, and caught that owner discussing very basic stuffs in length with a user who didn't reveal their level of knowledge. I pointed out the inconsistency, but I was censured again by the owner and was suspended by a moderator for several hours. I revealed my bad experiences on the meta site, and received mostly upvotes on the first day, but one day later, my meta post was downvoted, closed and deleted. Then I found out the chatroom buddies of the owner smeared me in another chatroom and conspired to remove my meta post. Then I joined the chatroom to fight against them. They censured me again, and summoned Thomas Ward to suspend me. The suspension was initially for a few hours, then changed to a week after a few minutes, and then changed to 345 days and network-wide after a few hours. Around that time, I was suspended on math stackexchange for a week (which is very unfair), and I questioned and criticized the moderators and Thomas Ward in my profile.

Secondly, what I would like to ask here: what is the justification for changing the length and scope of the suspension? The changes seem subjective and very much retaliation because of my questioning and criticizing the moderators being biased. In particular, the chatrooms of this site have nothing to do with what happened on math stackexchange. Why am I suspended on the chatrooms here for almost a year? What is the suspension intended to achieve?

Thomas Ward: since you are a moderator here and was involved, I hope you could think it over, regardless of your bindings. If you want to act, act unbiased this time.

Thanks.

Answer 1

So... I understand that you've been having some struggles the last few days. I'm one of the Community Managers here on Stack Exchange. As far as I'm aware, the issues you've had over the last week have been on Mathematics, so I'm not really sure this is the best forum for your question. Considering that, I'll be closing it after I answer it but I didn't want to shut down discussion entirely because I do want to get you some answers.

In general, this is the sort of thing that is best handled through the Contact form but it seems you've struggled with getting a response in the past - so I can understand why you're reaching out on meta... though, it'd be better done on Meta Stack Exchange or Meta Math Stack Exchange, save that you can't post on either currently.

---

Before I go any further I'll say that I've already reset your chat suspension to coincide with your Mathematics suspension rather than your Meta Stack Exchange suspension, so it will expire in four days instead of in a year. I'm not going to remove the suspension entirely. I'll take this moment to remind you that we require users to be professional and "be nice" on this network, even in chat and in particular on our sites.

Calling out and accusing specific users by name on meta or in user profiles is not appropriate - questions on Meta should focus on the situation not the users who got it there. If a question is closed and deleted, focus on the fact that it's closed and deleted, not on who did it.

Ask questions about these situations in an open manner, looking to understand and improve rather than to accuse others of wrongdoing. The former will more often lead to a constructive discussion. The latter leaves both the people being called out and the people who know and support them in a defensive mood. If you find you're unable to ask a constructive question on meta, I recommend you taking a day to think about it and calm down before posting.

---

Chat suspensions on Stack Exchange (not MSE or SO) are somewhat odd but we learn to work with that. We have three separate chat servers -

• Stack Overflow Chat - for SO only.
• Meta Stack Exchange Chat - for MSE only.
• Stack Exchange Chat - for all 170+ SE sites.

Suspensions are server based, not site based, so if you get a chat suspension on the SO server, you can still chat most other places. However, if you get a suspension due to actions in a Math chat room, that suspension will carry over to all of the SE server, leaving you unable to talk in rooms anywhere other than SO or MSE. You insist on being unsuspended from chat rooms other than those parented on Math - that is impossible. The system simply doesn't allow for single site or even single room chat suspensions.

As such, moderation of the Stack Exchange Chat is done by all moderators across the network and, to a degree, by all users with >10k aggregate reputation network-wide, as those users can review rude/abusive chat flags - and, if validated, chat flags give 30 minute suspensions per message. As such, telling Thomas Ward to not moderate your actions in the Math rooms is inappropriate and based on a misunderstanding of our system. If we didn't want him to be able to act in Math rooms, we'd make mods only have power on their own sites - but we didn't do that because it's often necessary for an off-site mod to act.

There's an added caveat when it comes to suspensions pulled from sites - your chat parent determines whether a site suspension will cause a chat suspension. If you're suspended on Site A and that's your chat parent - you'll also get a chat suspension for the exact duration of the site suspension. If the chat parent is any other site, you will not get a suspension in chat.

Some users intentionally keep their chat parent set to a site they don't use but still act up in chat, so we give moderators the ability to reparent a chat profile to a different site. When reparenting occurs, the chat account is suspended for the remainder of the site suspension duration. This is how I reset your suspension duration to match the Math suspension.

This is also how your suspension was extended to match the Meta Stack Exchange duration. While I can't say who made the change, I will say that it wasn't a moderator on Math or here on AU, so I'd appreciate if you'd rescind your accusations of Thomas Ward.

---

I hope the info provided here helps you better understand this specific situation and also helps you improve your meta participation going forward.

Answer 2

The short answer here is that chat suspensions are global (there are some other chat servers, but your suspension is on the one where both Mathematics and Ask Ubuntu chatrooms reside).

When one is suspended on the site of one's chat "parent user" (your chat parent user is your Mathematics account), one is suspended in chat also.

It is unclear why your chat suspension is so long, while your site suspension is only for another 5 days. I have not been able to find out exactly what happened. I will update this if I do. But Catija's answer has addressed this.

After some investigation and discussion, I did not find any grounds for such a long suspension.

After your suspension on the Math Stack Exchange ends, I would suggest that the chat suspension should also be ended.

---

By the way, as a suggestion, when trying to resolve a conflict, I recommend doing your best to present a clear picture (with, like, links and stuff if needed) of the situation without judgements; this will in general be more effective, as you avoid the risk of people feeling attacked, which often leads to further escalation.

Answer 3

You are not suspended in the chat rooms on Ask Ubuntu directly.

Rather, your parent account, on Mathematics.SE, is suspended and as such because you are suspended on that site the suspension carries onto your SE account. That chat suspension for a year is not Moderator-done - it's system done.

You received a chat suspension for disruptive behavior from a moderator until the 17th for unspecified reasons, then you got suspended on your parent site which means your chat suspension was instituted because you were suspended on the main Mathematics site where your account is suspended. That was not anything to do with Ask Ubuntu or its moderators.

As such, this is a question you need to take up with the Mathematics moderators, not the Ask Ubuntu moderators. (Mathematics and Ask Ubuntu are part of the same chat network on Stack Exchange - you need to actually address this issue with the moderators of the main site you're on, which is where you're suspended.)