A moderator closed this thread, even though the content does not violate any community guidelines and there is no reasonable basis for such an action.
Original post: https://discuss.ai.google.dev/t/noyb-has-contacted-me-google-should-start-sweating/175667
Repost :https://discuss.ai.google.dev/t/noyb-has-contacted-me-google-should-start-sweating-repost/176520
The system shows that this thread was closed by a user who only has the “googles” tag, but does not appear in any moderator or staff group — which means the closure was unauthorized.
The system shows that this thread was closed by a user who only has the “googles” tag and does not appear in the moderator list — which means the closure was unauthorized.
https://archive.org/details/members-moderators-google-ai-developers-forum
The ‘googles’ tag is not a moderator privilege.
If a user is not in the moderator list, then they are NOT a moderator.
Therefore, the closure was unauthorized.
The system shows that this thread was closed by a user who only has the ‘googles’ tag and does not appear in the moderator list — which means the closure was unauthorized.
The Discourse Meta documentation also confirms this: a MODERATOR is only someone whose moderator boolean flag is enabled.
If their profile does not show the moderator icon, they are NOT a moderator.
The ‘googles’ tag is not a moderator privilege.
If a user is not in the moderator list, then they are NOT a moderator.
Therefore, the closure was unauthorized.
The Discourse documentation is explicit:
– moderator = moderator boolean flag
– staff = admin or moderator
– trust level = NOT a moderator privilege
– group tag = NOT a moderator privilege
These are system‑level, database‑level rules, not ‘Google rules’.
Google only uses Discourse as a platform, even if they host it.
The ‘googles’ tag is NOT a moderator privilege, even if Google owns the server.
https://meta.discourse.org/t/understanding-user-statuses-roles-and-permissions/35171
https://discuss.ai.google.dev/u/guillaume_vernade/summary
Guillaume Vernade’s profile exists, but he has no moderator icon and he is not among the members of the Moderators group. Therefore, the closure was unauthorized. And Google cannot deny this
I proved with the forum engine’s rules that Guillaume Vernade is not an official moderator on the forum. I exposed that he closed my topic without any moderator privileges, in a NOYB data‑protection case. His job should be to forward bugs to the developers, but instead he acted as a censor. This was an unauthorized action — he had no right to close my topic.
The HTML snapshot of https://discuss.ai.google.dev/g/moderators is a 100% reliable piece of evidence because Discourse generates this page directly from the database, without caching, and the saved file contains the full DOM, user IDs, and the complete moderator group membership. If Guillaume is not present in that list, then he is not a moderator in the system. The full HTML capture is available as a ZIP archive here:
https://archive.org/details/members-moderators-google-ai-developers-forum_202607
I have also contacted the individual through a private message to request verification of their moderator privileges. You can find the saved copy of this here:
