Moderation and recent threads going south

[Travis Porter]

First off, let me say I am human, and as such, I screw up, make mistakes, etc, etc. Secondly, I am on the BOD, but that makes me no more important or better than any other BOD member or any of the moderators. I am a firm believer we should all be able to say our piece as long as it is not "slamming" others. Unfortunately, I have slammed others in the past, and have been moderated, but that is another discussion.....:embaresse

Cathy's recent thread seems to have gone south. I think Cathy's thread was a mistake. The mistake was that it wasn't closed, and that it was left open. I have no issues with what was included in Cathy's thread, just that leaving it open causes issues.

The PC term (Politically Correct) not Porter-Cable term has been thrown around a lot. We say we are not, but I see many times we are. Just because someone may make a post that includes religion, are we justified in moderating it? Conversely, that community/Christmas tree thread stayed open a WHOLE lot longer than I would have expected. Then we have other comments/things said. For me personally, I try to stay away from the stuff that causes problems.

I have no clue what caused Cathy to post her thread as I haven't been online much in the past week. I am not sure that some of the posts in Cathy's thread that Doug deleted should have been deleted. They may have used the PC term, but I did not see them in a negative context.

I kind of understand Mike Shelley's post. Here we are telling everyone to be nice when we should be telling the people that are not being nice to be nice. BUT, do we go overboard on what is and is not allowed? Do we confuse what is appropriate and OK with what is not? Was the thread with the joke about the car broke down and the guys wife inappropriate or politically incorrect? I found it funny, but I did not think it was inappropriate. I think it was closed, and I didn't say anything.

We have a lot of members that whine and complain, and it is A N N O Y I N G. Still, we have some active members who contribute substantially to the site fiscally and content wise that are complaining and that is the thing that bothers me. I don't have the answers, and will not pretend that I do.

So, where am I headed with this. I talked to Doug, got him to delete his post, and we discussed some of the posts he moderated. He is annoyed, and some of the stuff posted by some is definitely annoying. HIs thoughts and my thoughts are should we have a chat session or conf call with the corp membership to discuss moderation guidelines and how they are applied and what should and should not be allowed? I mean, we have some very active members that provide a lot of good content. Maybe if we understand their concerns and they understand where we are, we can coexist harmoniously....:3dblob3:

Thoughts, comments, suggestions? Please be specific. Anything goes and nothing is off limits.

 

[Douglas Robinson]

I think a chat would work best. No talking over each other and we would all know who was saying what.

 

[froglips]

Been a rough day. I don't think we are seeing anything new, just a flair up.

Firstly, I think any statement made by a Board or Staff member has to be taken in a more serious light than a general member.

While the intentions of our posts may be as a normal member, we are in positions of responsibility and therefor will be judged and scrutinized more closely than others.

What I would ask is we all step back and agree on messages such as the ones Doug, Cathy and Glenn posted.

These posts are coming from Board and Staff. They carry weight and will be viewed as directives or comments about general Members.

Not to take away from the great intentions of these posts, but it might be time for us to be more careful about these message we send out.

I spent an awkward 30 minutes on the chat this morning getting pummeled by people around this. Luckily cooler heads prevailed and someone started talking about turning

My point is, as part of the Staff, I was approached about Cathy's post and the comments around it. I was put in the position of defending her post, the policy and the PC issue.

I'd also like to throw this out, does the Board need to be involved in Moderation issues? I read the ByLaws, as near as I can tell the Board is not tasked with such a level of detail in Moderation issues.

It might help if we establish an escalation path through the Webmaster to raise major issues up to the Board that require them to weigh in on.

Jim

 

[Douglas Robinson]

I personally would prefer to only be consulted about moderation issues, when Tracy feels the rest of the boD is needed. This is his area of responsibility and he is more than capable of handling it. Getting the full BoD to chime takes too much time in many instances.

Doug

P.S. As President maybe I should not simultaneously be a moderator.?

 

[Glennbear]

This is my view on things YMMV. For several weeks now I have mentioned to anyone who will listen that judging from the number of page vists to our policy page vs. our number of members a lot of the membership in not aware of our WRITTEN policies. Today I took some action to try to change that : http://www.ncwoodworker.net/forums/f23/site-policy-please-read-29799/ I think where we go wrong is when we make posts like Cathy's which are not a word for word reiteration of our policies. Cathy's thoughts were not wrong but since she was personally expressing them in her own words that opened the door for all the comment that followed. As far as all the PC comments, our written policy explains that is not the case: "We are not trying to be arbiters of good taste or political correctness." As much as we would like to personally express our views based on site policy it can lead to places we do not want to go (DAMHIKT :rotflm:) I do not see anything wrong with our current written policies nor the way we are implementing them. If the membership feels that the policy should be amended they can petition the BOD to make changes but I feel unilateral changes by the site administration which are prompted by the discontent of a relatively few is the wrong way to go. To be absolutely frank, Travis' remarks alluding to fiscal and content contribution scare the heck out of me. To start making policy decisions based on a particular member's fiscal or content contributions are flat out wrong. :wsmile:

 

[woodArtz]

I could write a short book on this subject, but I'll try to keep it short .

The policies are designed to keep our site the friendliest woodworking site on the internet... not to maintain a sense of political correctness... not to retain a core group of "contributors". I tend to violate most of the prohibited subjects at some point during any given day. I just don't do it here, because I have the sense to know there's a time and place for everything. I wonder if any of the anti-PC crew would talk about women in a demeaning manner in Sunday school or tell a crude joke in front of their children or start a fight over politics with a stranger in the grocery store. It's a simple concept. The rules are set up for the least common denominator... the family. Isn't that simple? :dontknow: I really don't get the struggle to understand and comply.

I would be willing to bet that even if we ran off the a few of the current whiners, we'd be quite solvent without them.

MTCW

 

[Travis Porter]

I would be willing to bet that even if we ran off the a few of the current whiners, we'd be quite solvent without them.

MTCW

Oh the biggest whiners are not the biggest contributors by any means, not even close.

My point in all of this is are posts being moderated to be politically correct or to be appropriate?

Lastly, should we have a chat session with the membership on moderation?

 

[Glennbear]

Oh the biggest whiners are not the biggest contributors by any means, not even close.

My point in all of this is are posts being moderated to be politically correct or to be appropriate?

Lastly, should we have a chat session with the membership on moderation?

IMHO we should be moderating to strictly follow our written policies which is our "appropriate" golden yardstick. A chat session regarding moderation would not be productive methinks. :wsmile:

 

[DaveO]

It's winter, this seems to happen every year. Last year I told everyone to f...off, and then later called to apologize. No help, just recognizing a pattern.
Back to your regularly scheduled excessive discussion.


DaveO

 

[woodArtz]

...excessive...

Ouch... I'll try to keep it short next time. :icon_thum

 

[b4man]

My point in all of this is are posts being moderated to be politically correct or to be appropriate?

What is the difference in the two? Seriously. I really don't know.


Barbara

 

[Ray Martin]

What is the difference in the two? Seriously. I really don't know.


Barbara

Barbara,

I think the two are related in their underlying principle. Political Correctness might be viewed as a superset of our policy of appropriate posting. Our policy has only to do with a limited topic in a limited audience. Political Correctness applies to society as a whole. Both of these suffer from the same flaw; they are written, developed by people (who are basically flawed to begin with) and there will always be people who disagree. The only way either can work is to develop and apply a standard or norm that does the most good for the most people. The standard must also be a "living document" in that it can be changed over time to meet the norms of the constituency. To that end, I think our BoD has done a fantastic job.

 

[cskipper]

I believe that the lunatics have taken over the asylum. To quote SteveColes “Generally I find that when people use these phrases in self defense of their or others actions, what they really mean to do is defend their right to be, rude, crude, insensitive, obnoxious, arrogant and inconsiderate.”
We are trying to pin down a definition on something that is ever changing and can’t be defined any more clearly than stated in the site policy. The problem is not the definition, it’s the lack of action. The handfuls of trouble-makers have been led to believe that it is perfectly acceptable to bash the staff, to dare the staff to take action, and to mock the staff when action is taken. I think every post with even a hint of this needs to be moderated. Multiple posts if the type by any one person should result in some action. Jeff’s the proof that the staff isn’t going to do anything. He’ll last as long as he wants to on this site because he really does understand the game. If he’s been scolded for being rude or inconsiderate he will revert to his troll mode. Eventually he will be under the influence of something and go too far. But if that’s not for a month or so, the resolve to ban him will have weakened. The first post will raise the discussion, but then he’ll back off again.
To quote SteveColes “Generally I find that when people use these phrases in self defense of their or others actions, what they really mean to do is defend their right to be, rude, crude, insensitive, obnoxious, arrogant and inconsiderate.”
Again, it's not the definition that is the problem, it's the action or lack of action that IMHO is lacking.