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Policy Changes: How do you feel?
svb1972:
There have been a few times where I've seen the full might of the moderators fall on someone and I couldn't figure out why.
perhaps it was because the offending post was deleted or edited before I ever read it. But sometimes it feels a little random. That being said, I haven't really changed what I would or would not say on the forum. Though I have done a better job of resisting Fist of Death.
I'm not so much worried about the Line.. I think for the most part the line is pretty clear.
Although Don't Mess with Texas seems to be a new by word on the forum :)
odin:
You know, I've been giving this forum and its changes a lot of thought recently. I was thinking about it yesterday while driving down my street when I spied a police cruiser turn in right behind me. I must admit, I immediately sat up in my chair, tried to remember if my tags were current, slowed a bit, and found my hands automatically reach for the ole ten and two. Before I saw the officer, I was bee-bopping along, listening to music and draining a can of cola, carefree...and maybe just a bit careless. Were we having more fun in forum, more carefree and bee boppy 6 months ago? Yes. But some folks weren't paying near enough attention to warnings from mods, mods weren't giving habitual abusers a quick enough of a heave ho the hell outta here and things correspondingly went to hell. Our once vibrant museum of smart, snarky delight has now had its walls covered in a yuck color of beigey restraint. There has been a chilling effect. Then again, maybe some folks needed to chill. Folks used to have a bit more restraint round here, a natural balance could be felt. That left somehow and those with little self control and a whole bucketful of bad intentions almost shut this place down for the more community-minded among us. The whole damn ruckus makes me kind of sad. Maybe we'll see a decrease in MOD cruisers in our neighborhoods when folks ease up a little with taking this whole fiction thing a bit too seriously and maybe then and only then, we'll be able to be-bop down the road once again.
Honestly, and with all due respect to mods and members alike,
O
Elanel:
I have lurked more than posted on here. But I've seen some spectacular blowouts in some threads and even seen just how ridiculously far people are willing to go to prove that the mods here are the big bad. But I come at this from experience.
Owning my own web forum for many very loooong years now, I can sympathise with the approach the mods have had to take to bring the board past a period of instability around certain areas of the site. Forums morph into bigger entities over time. It's not a bad thing, especially where this site is concerned. More members, participation and ideas is a good representation of how well Jim's stories are being received by the masses. Unfortunately it can result in 'growing pains' for the site. You get the technical problems with servers unable to accommodate your resulting bandwidth needs and at the same time some of these new members arrive arguing religiously for their "Right to be right". It all results in a slow and unavoidable build up of pressure that let's itself be known sooner or later. It's quite interesting to see how this forum has evolved almost identically to how mine did, in terms of expanding the number of discussion forums and spreading things out for more fun & creativity. You put your members first all the time, but in doing so you effectively give yourself more places to moderate, more work to do and all so you can create a more harmonious atmosphere. It's hardly the act of people who want to stifle debate, in my opinion.
I try to maintain a level head with my site and remind people who tell me they have freedom of speech that it's a privately owned and operated site. Freedom of speech is not denied. I don't tell anyone they can't say something, I only remind people that there are limits and consequences, lines you should avoid crossing. But I'm no-one's parent or guardian. People know full well how they will be received when they start writing snarky, uninvited vitriol. Fine, I say. You made a choice and now I'll make mine, which is almost always a very dispassionate undertaking. The internet is the Wild West of our age and this website like many, many others is a growing township, founded by the Sheriff, with ever-evolving laws that help keep the town in order. As quickly as you check in, you can be checked out and that's how long you are remembered.
And here's the thing, moderators are assumed trigger-happy tools who employ their powers liberally and completely biased toward one side of the debate. Depending on how we judge an issue, we end up sitting in our zen of not being able to do anything right, whilst simultaneously not being able to do any wrong. It's difficult to convey our judgements to members, because you try to respect privacy where you can. You don't publicize what posts are reported for a reason, therefore it's impossible to show every instance where you've acted in the interests of the site, not in the interests of a clique. People will unfortunately form a very one-sided view of you, but you just have to maintain your approach and hope people get why you are doing this, even if they cannot agree with it.
It's a great website, here. Lots of good debates. Wish I had time to post more. The mods here do a great job and the fact they are willing to hear us out, to allow peoples voices to be heard if there are issues is better than a lot of places that would slam a door in your face and ban you for nothing more that suggesting a decision was wrong. No one is infallible, we all make mistakes, so the opportunity to be seen & heard is a vital one for any growing community.
Paynesgrey:
--- Quote from: svb1972 on June 21, 2010, 04:17:52 PM ---There have been a few times where I've seen the full might of the moderators fall on someone and I couldn't figure out why.
perhaps it was because the offending post was deleted or edited before I ever read it. But sometimes it feels a little random. That being said, I haven't really changed what I would or would not say on the forum. Though I have done a better job of resisting Fist of Death.
I'm not so much worried about the Line.. I think for the most part the line is pretty clear.
Although Don't Mess with Texas seems to be a new by word on the forum :)
--- End quote ---
Frequently there will be a pattern of behavior on different areas of the forum. An out of line crack on the thread dedicated to ham worship, an out of line remark on a spoiler section dedicated to how the Accords regulate Harry's sock drawer, etc, and a week before that an out of line comment on yet another thread. The issues can occur all over the place where no individual member of mod might spot the matter, but we pull things together and compare notes. We don't just look at a single poster's behavior in one section or on one topic, but their overall activity. Eventually someone gets the "we've asked nice, the boy just don't get it" award. It might seem like a random banhammer for one comment, but it's often something the person's been working towards for a while.
Also, sometimes it can be just a case someone reverting to old behaviour they've been "corrected" on in the past. A single infraction can win a vacation if it's bad enough, or occurs after the Enough of This Bullshit Lamp has been lit because of similar infractions of the same sort.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
I kind of regret that the way things were set up before didn't work out; there were debates in TT that I really enjoyed, both for the joy of reasoned argument and for being enlightening and informative and helping me refine some of my own positions. That said, I'm very aware of it being Fred's forum, and of Jim's expressed preferences, and not at all meaning to push on that. Just a bit wistful.
Wrt the on-topic parts of the forum, I'm well aware that the level of analysis and speculation I most enjoy is not something everyone enjoys - IIRC one of the motives for starting the Book Club forum in the first place was people wanting to have discussions not doing that. And there have been a couple of times where that intensity of focus has read to other posters as antagonistic; which is very much not my intent, and for which I have apologised when I have realised it was being read that way.
So in terms of telling where "the line" is, it's not always clear to me where the distinction will be perceived between engaging with an argument in detail in order to test the consequences of a new idea and see where it fits with other things we know about the DV, and what will be seen as antagonistic nitpicking. Or rather, to me personally, the more time, energy and focus someone puts into giving an idea of mine a thorough workout, the more I feel that person is showing me respect, however vehemently they may disagree with me. If I, as Shecky suggested, completely remove my personal knowledge of the other poster, that is how one takes an idea seriously. And there does seem to me a qualitative distinction between that and, say, calling someone who disagrees with you an imbecile.
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