The who should be Mod and Mod Issues Thread

[Karee 4,190]

Oh goody, the 'websensor' thinks that ####### for tat is sexually explicit. Epic!

Try posting GWB's vice president's first name and you get a bunch of #### as well. It's all about the children apparently.

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

Try posting GWB's vice president's first name and you get a bunch of #### as well. It's all about the children apparently.

Richard

I did not get any ######

You made that up didn't you

Why do you hate Obama. Is it cause he is black ?

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

Unfortunately that degree of latitude actually encourages personal prejudices.

Especially as the poster who made the personal attack against me, which was deleted, then came back again afterwards and said the exact same thing again. As I say, something is clearly very off with the decision making.

And I still haven't had any response on why my Israeli passport thread was baiting but the thread about Sweden being ruined by Muslim rapists was not.

You really should consider manning up and moving to Alaska. It might help this situation.

Also, today I saw the weirdest application of "bait thread" I've ever seen on here. Apparently just being a nutter is now being a baiter, which I think is unfair. I mean, if you're a nutter, you can't really help posting crazy stuff.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Well Marc posted one of his rant threads recently and the moderator needed to be told the whole premise of the thread was to bait people, after first removing a personal attack.

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

Well Marc posted one of his rant threads recently and the moderator needed to be told the whole premise of the thread was to bait people, after first removing a personal attack.

Hm, that may be an exception to the Grand Unifying Theory of Nutterdom.

I of course am not mod material because I actually believe in consistency, fair play and transparency.

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

You really should consider manning up and moving to Alaska. It might help this situation.

Also, today I saw the weirdest application of "bait thread" I've ever seen on here. Apparently just being a nutter is now being a baiter, which I think is unfair. I mean, if you're a nutter, you can't really help posting crazy stuff.

Thank you for being tolerant to us nutters. It's not an easy job, but I try .

Not calling you out, but since you brought it up, I would love others opinions.

As for bait posts. I do find calling out some posts as bait posts odd. I mean are not all posts designed to garner a reaction from other members? Example,AJ does a good job of posting a very wide subject of different news stories from the far reaches of the globe. He does that to start discussions. CHEST would be a lot quieter without him. Are his posts , bait posts?

Surely almost any subject is going to bring on disagreement. Guns, Obama, Immigration, drinking age, Israel, etc etc. seems like any post of that nature would be seeking debate. Debate is another word for argue.

So what makes it a bait post? Does it have to be a subject, that one member might consider "fringe" or "out there"

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

Thank you for being tolerant to us nutters. It's not an easy job, but I try .

Not calling you out, but since you brought it up, I would love others opinions.

As for bait posts. I do find calling out some posts as bait posts odd. I mean are not all posts designed to garner a reaction from other members? Example,AJ does a good job of posting a very wide subject of different news stories from the far reaches of the globe. He does that to start discussions. CHEST would be a lot quieter without him. Are his posts , bait posts?

Surely almost any subject is going to bring on disagreement. Guns, Obama, Immigration, drinking age, Israel, etc etc. seems like any post of that nature would be seeking debate. Debate is another word for argue.

So what makes it a bait post? Does it have to be a subject, that one member might consider "fringe" or "out there"

I think you need to think of it in the context of the poster and the target of the alleged bait. So, if I were to post a thread that was about, say, "Ukrainian Women Are The Worst Wives," you'd have to consider my past posting history and negative interactions with other posters. Now, that would DEFINITELY be a bait thread coming from me, but almost certainly not from you. A bait thread is a thread which is posted with the intent to raise the hackles of specific posters, not the community at large (like an Obama thread, or a gun thread). But this isn't a broad enough definition, and it would be useful to come up with a workable definition.

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

I think you need to think of it in the context of the poster and the target of the alleged bait. So, if I were to post a thread that was about, say, "Ukrainian Women Are The Worst Wives," you'd have to consider my past posting history and negative interactions with other posters. Now, that would DEFINITELY be a bait thread coming from me, but almost certainly not from you. A bait thread is a thread which is posted with the intent to raise the hackles of specific posters, not the community at large (like an Obama thread, or a gun thread). But this isn't a broad enough definition, and it would be useful to come up with a workable definition.

Good explanation, but i still don't see how seeking debate with one or two as opposed to 10 or so makes one post bad another ok. As long as one doesn't engage in blatant mean spirited personal attacks

Also I think you have to have been around here a while to be able to separate, playful banter, from mean spirited comments . That is where I think it could hard to be a mod sometimes. You get called into the middle of something, and to be fair, they don't have time to read 10 pages and don't know all the players. Marvin threatens to cut me daily or I joke about CABA beat downs. I always chuckle when this happens , but if someone with an agenda reported and a green mod saw it ???

I think the best policy is just to ignore posters, that you think are trying to lure you into a mud slinging contest. I get bating responses many times a week, from posters I feel just want to lure me into a fight, some to possibly report. I just ignore them. If you can't take a joke or engage in a little good humored retort, I just avoid you.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

This illustrates the problem with how moderation works here. Deleting posts in another thread just removes the context and gives the poster licence to continue it into another thread. You can't see what was originally written, what it was in response to, or whether it had anything to do with the topic.

We just have the above post as if that stands on its own.

[TBoneTX 45,005]

Post (referred to in stand-alone line of post just above this one) removed as a perceived personal attack. Let's please all consciously apply principles of personal respect in our language, folks.

[TBoneTX 45,005]

This illustrates the problem with how moderation works here. Deleting posts in another thread just removes the context and gives the poster licence to continue it into another thread. You can't see what was originally written, what it was in response to, or whether it had anything to do with the topic.

Others at higher pay-grades would be involved, so I'm merely seizing the opportunity to ask the question while it's fresh: What system would you recommend as a replacement for the current one? Various technical and operational variables come into in play, so the more comprehensive the ideas, the better.

I wonder, too, whether the question and proposal belong in this thread/forum or in Site Discussion, which also gets a lot of views and input. If you posed the issue and your solutions there, the thread would be obvious to all, and the issue wouldn't get buried within a many-page thread in a forum that other members eschew. On the other hand, this thread might still be going straight to the eyes of Captain Ewok. What do you think?

Edited July 20, 2014 by TBoneTX

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Well.... I think it's pointless trying to moderate the CEHST forum for anything other than very serious issues, like having people threaten others with violence, which has happened here before.

Other than that, it's overly bureaucratic. This sub forum isn't even the purpose of the site. The upper forums should be moderated, the off topic ones not so much. At least not unless you're going to actively moderate discussions (through a set of strict on topic posting rules), rather than at present, which seems to involve removing odd posts here and there, often without reading the whole thread to see where the issues started (which creates an impression of inconsistency and bias). One solution involves an inordinate amount of work for the people involved, the other does not.

Let people be rude. Is that such a bad thing?

The problem with deleting posts is that it deletes the forum history for the users. For example, if you know someone is racist because they made a monkey comment about the president, for example, it shouldn't be considered a personal attack to say so. The evidence is there for all to see.

What happens at the moment is you have a few people with extreme views who are essentially protected by having their objectionable content cleaned up for them.

Edited July 20, 2014 by Hail Ming!

[TBoneTX 45,005]

As a simpler reading of your post: Folks aren't supposed to transport drama from one thread to another, and if it's reported or perceived, it'll be acted upon. Is that more of what you were saying?

[TBoneTX 45,005]

Well.... I think it's pointless trying to moderate the CEHST forum for anything other than very serious issues, like having people threaten others with violence, which has happened here before.

Other than that, it's overly bureaucratic. This sub forum isn't even the purpose of the site. The upper forums should be moderated, the off topic ones not so much. At least not unless you're going to actively moderate discussions, rather than at present, which seems to involve removing odd posts here and there, often without reading the whole thread to see where the issues started (which creates an impression of inconsistency and bias).

Let people be rude. Is that such a bad thing?

(Posts crossing over)

Everyone reads threads for context, as far as I honestly know.

"Very serious issues" are often a matter of degree; this fits with the perception of removing odd posts here and there.

As far as letting people be rude, it's arguably OK for an inside crowd, but it creates and perpetuates a very negative view of VJ for outsiders. Some is or is meant to be in good fun, we know, but do outsiders, devoid of the history and context, know this? I'd bet not. In addition, some extremely intelligent, deep-thinking, literate, elegantly expressive posters have added completely unnecessary personal digs at people -- comments completely unnecessary to support the eloquent points that otherwise stand on their own. What a crying shame it is when these elegant posters diminish their own material by adding unnecessary rude remarks.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

As a simpler reading of your post: Folks aren't supposed to transport drama from one thread to another, and if it's reported or perceived, it'll be acted upon. Is that more of what you were saying?

I'm saying that you either aggressively moderate the forums by actively participating in the thread in real time, removing all and any off topic posts from the discussions and thread ban anyone who deviates. That's obviously an impractical amount of work. So go the other way, don't moderate the off topic forums, just put a warning on them to let new users know what to expect. This is what other sites do.

Currently enforcement of the TOS is a game. I'll give you an example - you p!ssed me off by closing a thread I started as a 'baiting' thread, but you left others open which were blatantly worse. You then suspended me for a comment I made in a thread that was less of a TOS violation than the ones I reported (which preceded mine). Then you retroactively removed the other posters content and took no further action against them (despite previous warnings that were given in the thread) when they continued in the same vein in the same thread and now in this one.

Because of that, I'm now going to report everything I see as a TOS violation to see what the official reaction is. I want to see consistency and transparency in the decision making, but it's not there. What I see is deliberate, calculated bias.

Edited July 20, 2014 by Hail Ming!