Formal complaint against Suttacentral for unfair treatment and discrimination

Please provide the procedure for me to file a formal complaint against the entire Suttacentral staff regarding the unfair treatment and discrimination against me. You folks have been consistently shutting down my protest against Bhikkhuni Vimalanyani for her serious disrespect of the Buddhist Monastic code by using language inappropriate of a monastic while describing the Vinaya. I have the right to raise this to the board of directors and all financial contributors who have been providing support to this web site. They have the right to know how Suttacentral staff treat their forum members before they can make informed decisions on whether to continue to provide financial support to this site or not. The fact that you have erased all of my posts using the “moderation by the mob” approach is utterly unfair and inappropriate. Thank you.

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Dear santa100

Posting on this forum and using this website is a privilege and all users have a right to an environment free of allegations and abuse against them.

As soon as you use this website or sign up to and use this forum, you are beholden to the terms of service and guidelines developed here.

I quote -

The Website is offered subject to your acceptance without modification of all of the terms and conditions contained herein and all other operating rules, policies (including, without limitation, discourse.suttacentral.net’s Privacy Policy and Community Guidelines) and procedures that may be published from time to time on this Site by SuttaCentral (collectively, the “Agreement”).

We do not control the flagging protocol, nor who flags post here. That is determined by the platform (Discourse) and the individual users who make up this community and decide what it should include.

Moderators do their best to represent the needs of the community and all of our operations are transparent as seen on the guidelines.
As the guidelines say -

Likewise, I implore you once again -

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I will have to remind you of the fact that there are generous financial contributors who are willing to contribute to this site to meet that ~ 150,000$ required for the maintenance of the site. I have the right to demand the board of directors to review this whole matter and they will make the final decision on who is right and who is wrong, me or the SC admin staff. It would be utterly unfair for contributors to continue to provide support to a site where its staff provide its forum members with such terrible services. If this as you said, not in the control of the staff, then I’d say the design of the web site is seriously flawed with such terrible auto-features (like the “moderation by the mob” feature in particular) and will need serious re-design efforts to prevent such unfortunate incident like this from happening again.

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As a member of the board of directors, I can assure you that you have no such right. You do, however, have the responsibility to maintain community standards and abide by our rules. The guidelines that you have agreed to include the following:

Responding well to admonition is regarded as a basic sign of integrity in Dhamma communication. If you respond with anger, insults or by attacking the admonisher, other users, the site, or those running it, expect to find yourself permanently banned.

If you would like to have any donations refunded, we will gladly do so. However we will not tolerate attacks on our staff and volunteers.

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Well, thank you for giving a straight answer. I have highlighted the key point in your statement and would like every single future financial contributor out there who is considering donating to Suttacentral web site to seriously consider it before making your donation to a site where you have absolutely no right to demand proper treatment for forum members. By the way, other members of the board of directors, please provide your input. Thank you.

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You have every right to request clarification, in a polite and respectful manner. But you are quite right, you have no right to demand anything. Our house, our rules. @Brahmali, anything to add?

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I did say please so you’ll also need to be polite in return. So I’ll say it again, other members of the board of directors, please provide your input. By the way, it’s not “your house, your rules”. It’s the house of every stakeholder who contribute in various different ways: technically, spiritually, and financially. Thank you.

PS. you deliberately cut off my sentence and so I will repeat the full sentence here:

I have highlighted the key point in your statement and would like every single future financial contributor out there who is considering donating to Suttacentral web site to seriously consider it before making your donation to a site where you have absolutely no right to demand proper treatment for forum members.

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Dear Venerable ,

Just to be fair , if those disagrees to the Buddha’s Vinaya would consider equal to lacking of humility towards the Buddha in the first place !

If that is the case , with all those whom in SC seems to demand for equality were against the ** Buddha rules(Vinaya)** was in question ?!
I am not against anything , but being fair .
If the SC decide to ban anyone without careful consideration , that is no different to the absence of equality and freedom of speech and democratic appeal which many members of the SC were debating about Buddha Vinaya !

Ps.
If we can allows anyone to criticise on Buddha Vinaya , why not let others also point out any statements weaknesses in SC without illwill ?! Is that fair enough ?!

Regards .

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Is it possible for a group of members to gang-up against a particular member and miss use this automated feature?

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It seems they could . My post meant well , but they took it as an attack ! They try to side their members , that is protective behavior .
For me , it doesn’t matter , the whole world is watching . Let the viewer decides .
Once more , let me highlight , I am trying to point out something is wrong here . Just like anyone point out Buddha vinaya flaws .

No offense .

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This is not the teachings of the Buddha !
Especially not for the monks and nuns to follow iron fist !

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It is, but we would become aware of it and the moderators can take action. Only members with a certain trust level can flag, so there is a built-in safeguard.

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I have sympathy for your case but you have to look at Sutta Central project in a more objective fashion.
The success of Sutta central is not determined by how the discussion forum is managed. I think the discussion forum is just an added feature (just like the water cooler) and not it’s core objective.

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A silly question.:grinning:
Who are the moderators? How do you identify them?
Are moderators allowed to flag?

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You are trying to throw the baby with the bad water!

Try to be sensible .

No, without transparency and public awareness, it’ll be all bad water! I only tell the facts and it’s important to stay with the facts here.

@sujato

Dear Venerable ,

In this dispute , fairness and kindness is utmost important ! How you deal with and shows to the public will determine if the Buddha teaching is in the action .
you can choose a better approach , if the mods and some members have weaknesses , why not advise them to be more sensible , let’s give each other a chance , we are not enemies !

Regards .

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My understanding is that the vast majority of donations go to SuttaCentral, not to this site. Giving to SuttaCentral means giving to have the Suttas publicly available, and that has very little to do with any discussion happening here.

As for “moderation by the mob”, what I see is feature whereby the site is self-regulating. It seems quite reasonable to me to unload some of the burdensome task of moderation to the users. What might be discussed, I suppose, is how many votes are needed and to what extent the moderators have a final say. But the basic principle seems quite democratic to me.

The allegation that Ayya Vimalanyani has “serious disrespect of the Buddhist Monastic code” is serious. This is a judgement of someone else’s intentions and impossible to substantiate. To me she is just opening up a discussion. Personally I think such discussions are very important. They do not in themselves imply disrespect, rather the opposite I would say.

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With due respect Bhante, it’s impossible for me to prove that you’re mistaken in this matter when almost every single post I wrote to provide proof of her offense in that thread have been deleted by your dear admins, or by the dear mob as a result of that terrible auto-feature. I’ll be honest, it looks like you have clearly picked a side before even take an objective investigation on such a serious ongoing issue here at Suttacentral. I admit I’m never a smooth talker, but I can say without hesitation that my intention is honest and selfless. I don’t care about me, nor you, nor Sujato. I care about the future state of the precious Dhamma. And I have great concern about Its future with the way you folks are doing things here at Suttacentral.

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