board77

TheEllipticalDisillusion wrote:

You make valid points, but I just don't agree that the thread's impact is or will be as profound as you seem to think it was or will. It wasn't there for long enough. I also don't agree that the Bike Racks future usefulness was threatened in any way. That's an awfully heavy charge to lay based on speculation. Let's look back at your statement in two or three months and then we can assess any damage the thread has done.

TED, my statements apply to the scenario of the thread having been allowed to stay, and having been accorded the respect of a real attempt at resolution by posts of people like myself, who were distressed about it, being deleted in mock respect of the posters 'attempt' to resove their 'difficulty' and in mock respect of their right to control the disposition of their 'efforts'.

I'm not suggesting any damage has been done with the thread having been deleted.

Edit

Or with the thread having been moved to an appropriate forum.

The thread has not been deleted.
There is an announcement in Turf concerning the thread.

I thought we were a self-moderating board with just a lot procedural crap.

I think the key here is that the magnitude of the infraction is so small (as I see it), but yet it is being treated as if someone hacked our code, or stole special passwords.

I think your analogy falls short. The magnitude and danger of speed limits does not compare to this board and the charter. We already have this trust aspect as a major aspect of b77 otherwise the Bike Racks would be private to those in the dispute and the trust that anyone can be a ranger and not steal the passwords or do anything corrupted with the powers that come along with being a ranger.

I won't pretend to know whether Hal really wants a board with NO rules or not, but I think in our self-moderated board the rules serve as a guide, not so much absolutes.

halplm wrote:

You are not offended and miffed for anything done to you, which very much would be something that should be avoided. You were offended and miffed on BEHALF OF THE BOARD.

I was offended (I was not miffed) and upset because I felt that the usefulness of an excellent and important opportunity for PEOPLE who post here was being threatened for no good reason.

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So what gives you or anyone the right to be offended on behalf of the board?

I am a part of this community, a group of PEOPLE. I was offended because I felt that the usefulness of something important to the PEOPLE who make up this community, of which I am part, was being threatened for no good reason.

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I'm offended pretty much every day I get online. The difference between you and I, Cerin, is that I never do ANYTHING about it unless it is somethign that was aimed at me or a friend.

Well that's interesting. So the only offenses that matter to you are the ones that affect the people you care about; an offense matters to me even if the offended isn't someone dear to me; even if I will never know the person whose chance at resolving a conflict on this board was ruined because we allowed a mock thread to stand in that forum, it still matters to me.

First of all, the driving analogy is absurd, because unsafe driving leads to massive injury and death, and as much as many of us are heavily invested in this board, it's not going to kill anyone.

Secondly, I'm not in favor of no rules. I'm very much in favor of action being taken when it's necessary. I'm also very much in favor of clearly outlining what makes that action necessary.

After that, I say let anything go. I'm not against rules for the bikeracks, or any other forum, but I do think they should be GUIDELINES. If we're operating under the assumption people are acting trusting, respectful and with intelligence, then those guidlines will be followed pretty much all the time. However, when someone wants to go outside the guidlines, they may. Perhaps this will upset some people, and perhaps some PMs or another thread gets started discussing it, but no ACTION is proposed, like deleting posts or moving threads or whatever.

If it's an error on the part of the person going outside the guidlines, and it's pointed out, then most of the time they'll agree, out of respect and trust, probably agreeing to take some action. However, if they disagree, still NO ACTION should be proposed... merely let them have their say (or joke) and move on.

If we go back to the bikeracks thread concept, the whole thing would have been nothing, if the hurt posters had just PMed Lidless and TP explaining the problem. Instead, Lidless and TP thought people just objected to their joke, and then suddenly people went over their heads looking for ACTION.

This is where my whole idea of "charter before the posters" concept comes in, and I realize peopel haven't gotten why I say that. The outside perception of those events is "joke thread:objection:no, it's just a joke: charter action" So instead of accepting they were just joking, and respecting their choice to briefly disregard whatever "rules" were set up there, action and rangers and the charter was the next step.

I don't know if that clarified anything, or if I'm just repeating myself again, but... oh well.

Hal will these "guidelines" be about anything important?

If not, why have any? Look at Ain't-It-Cool News talkbacks—they don't have any and people still post there. Of course, the general level of useful or interesting content is near zero.

If the "guidelines" are about anything important, doesn't that mean they should be followed? If people care enough to work them out and vote them in, why should they be tossed anytime someone decides they get in the way? Presumably they were created to protect people's right to something important.

What about "guidelines" against posting grotesquely obscene or violent pictures, or threatening violence against another poster? Should those be optional, too?

Hal,

Fair enough. May I ask a few more questions to develop what you said?

A place where people could be free to do as they wished, while still maintaining an expectation of intelligence and decent behavior.

How would you like us to decide what constitutes intelligent and decent behavior?

If one poster thinks another poster's behavior isn't 'decent,' to whom should they express this opinion, and how?

But by decent behavior, what I mean is, none of the typical non-moderated internet board crap.

I don't know what this means because TORC was my only mb experience before coming here.

Can you give me some examples of unmoderated behavior that you think should be allowed here but which you believe to be forbidden at the present time?

One last question, and please answer honestly. Have you read any of the Charter, or any of the summaries that appeared at the beginning of each ratification thread?

Jn

halplm wrote:

If we go back to the bikeracks thread concept, the whole thing would have been nothing, if the hurt posters had just PMed Lidless and TP explaining the problem. Instead, Lidless and TP thought people just objected to their joke, and then suddenly people went over their heads looking for ACTION.

'Over their heads' implies there is someone higher than they are. There is no one on this board higher than any other person. Posting on the board about matters that concern the board is not going over people's heads. PMing Rangers about concerns is not 'going over people's heads'. It is dealing with things in the democratic, open and transparent manner that we so laughingly tout in our Mission Statement.

Perhaps what we need is an amendment to the Mission Statement:

Behind this appealing facade you will find a seething cesspool of rancor and confusion continually renewed through the irresistibly beguiling channels of the Personal Message, where members may rant and spew and create hopelessly tangled webs of misunderstanding to their hearts' content unimpeded by the bounds of civility and public record accorded by board discourse.

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So instead of accepting they were just joking, and respecting their choice to briefly disregard whatever "rules" were set up there, action and rangers and the charter was the next step.

The whole point (to me) is that they were just joking.

Behind this appealing facade you will find a seething cesspool of rancor and confusion continually renewed through the irresistibly beguiling channels of the Personal Message, where members may rant and spew and create hopelessly tangled webs of misunderstanding to their hearts' content unimpeded by the bounds of civility and public record accorded by board discourse.




Oh dear, sometimes I feel as if that is what's in our charter.

Jn

Can we approve that amendment to the Mission Statement without an actual vote? Please? Just this once?

Sounds like paranoia to me. But what do I know?

No, the guidlines are not about anything important. But I'm defining anything important as being things that will require kicking someone out.

Why have them at all? I don't think we need them at all. The whole point is the group of people present, if they are respectful and all that jazz, don't need them. Are there rampant swearing posts, meaningless posts, violent threats, and echos of "first post" everywhere? No, because of the reasonable expectation of intelligence and good behavior.

the actuall RULES would have things that were important, things that would require kicking someone out. Those should be agreed upon and well documented, and rules for how that occurs should be agreed upon and documented.

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What about "guidelines" against posting grotesquely obscene or violent pictures, or threatening violence against another poster? Should those be optional, too?

I think these would be covered in the rules. As I said, I'm not in favor of no rules.

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Hal, fair enough. May I ask a few more questions to develop what you said?

A place where people could be free to do as they wished, while still maintaining an expectation of intelligence and decent behavior.

How would you like us to decide what constitutes intelligent and decent behavior?

I don't think anyone should decide this. I don't think something should be "actionable" even if it violates this. The thing about a message board is, people of like minds tend to hang around. Right now, we have a bunch of like minds, even if we always disagree. We generally do have intelligent and decent behavior. I can think of almost no examples otherwise. People who don't behave intelligently and decently, won't stick around too long, because there's no value in it for them. You're keying into the wrong part of what I said. That's the last thing on my list. It almost falls out of the rest of it.

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If one poster thinks another poster's behavior isn't 'decent,' to whom should they express this opinion, and how?

They shouldn't have to. If it's not obvious to a lot of people, or say, a ranger, then it's probably that persons isolated opinion, or they misunderstood, or didn't get the joke. Regardless, the only one they really should express that opinion to is the offender. That's always what I thought the "self moderated" bit of our board was. Not pointing it out to a ranger (who is not a moderator), but making it clear to the offender that you didn't think it was appropriate.

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But by decent behavior, what I mean is, none of the typical non-moderated internet board crap.

I don't know what this means because TORC was my only mb experience before coming here.

Things like Ain't it cool news, where people are just rude to be rude, and mean to be mean, and have no respect for anyone or anything there. With moderators, this stuff goes away, because it adds a level of behavioral expectation.

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Can you give me some examples of unmoderated behavior that you think should be allowed here but which you believe to be forbidden at the present time?

No, I said that unmoderated behavior was something I think didn't belong here.

hal wrote:

We generally do have intelligent and decent behavior. I can think of almost no examples otherwise.

You must not have read the CG, SF, Ara-Anna, yov, et all bikeracks thread.

Cerin wrote:

halplm wrote:

If we go back to the bikeracks thread concept, the whole thing would have been nothing, if the hurt posters had just PMed Lidless and TP explaining the problem. Instead, Lidless and TP thought people just objected to their joke, and then suddenly people went over their heads looking for ACTION.

'Over their heads' implies there is someone higher than they are. There is no one on this board higher than any other person. Posting on the board about matters that concern the board is not going over people's heads. PMing Rangers about concerns is not 'going over people's heads'. It is dealing with things in the democratic, open and transparent manner that we so laughingly tout in our Mission Statement.

You are right, there shouldn't be anyone higher than any other. However, the rangers are the ones with power to enforce whatever rules that exist. They do have power to act on another person's posts. If you PM a ranger, that is making a request that something be changed, to someone who has the power to make that change. Even if they then go to the "offender" and ask them if they can make a change, this is coming from a position of someone who COULD make the change anyway.

As for starting a discussion of the concerns, that also is not going over someones head, but when it is done IN the contact the rangers thread or EVEN just in the business room. That is where decisions effecting the board are made. That is where you would go to get consensus to take ACTION against the "offender."

So it is still going, "over their head."

As for the mission statement, I've always thought it was laughable. The transparent, open, and democratic thing to do would be to start a thread discussion about what might be in appropriate fore the bikeracks, and inviting everyone involved to join in. It would not suggest anything about a current thread in the bikeracks, but it would address future issues. This would also be respectful of everyone involveds opinions.

Erunáme wrote:

hal wrote:

We generally do have intelligent and decent behavior. I can think of almost no examples otherwise.

You must not have read the CG, SF, Ara-Anna, yov, et all bikeracks thread.

I said almost

halplm wrote:

They do have power to act on another person's posts.

Not really:

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Rangers may not:
• Delete posts or lock threads without permission of the originator unless the originator has engaged in conduct justifying an immediate ban, or edit posts except in the circumstances specified in paragraph ¶5;

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• Edit Posts if they contain objectionable content (for example, abuse of another poster, defamatory remarks, pornographic, violent or distasteful content, or advertisement of products), or if they reveal personal information that compromises another poster's privacy or contain any personal information about a minor.

I've asked this before, Jn's now asked this:

Have you ever taken the time to look through the charter? Do you actually know what it contains?

I would like to thank Jn for her wonderful, articulate post on page 10, in which she spoke for me and, I believe, for many here. I wonder how often the fabric of this community can be ripped and bloodied before there is no more healing possible. Just as in the flesh, scars in the body of the community will constrict the body’s capacity to function.

I would, however, like to address a specific issue which Cerin happened to bring up and is a bug-bear for me. It relates to the whole issue of transparency, which I know is a value held very highly on this board for obvious reasons but with which I have a problem when it is pushed to its extreme.

Cerin wrote:

“3. he feels he is a 'Godfather' type figure to whom people must go privately if they take issue with something he posted, rather than speaking to him in a thread as one does with ordinary posters…â€

Erunáme wrote:

halplm wrote:

They do have power to act on another person's posts.

Not really:

Quote:

Rangers may not:
• Delete posts or lock threads without permission of the originator unless the originator has engaged in conduct justifying an immediate ban, or edit posts except in the circumstances specified in paragraph ¶5;

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• Edit Posts if they contain objectionable content (for example, abuse of another poster, defamatory remarks, pornographic, violent or distasteful content, or advertisement of products), or if they reveal personal information that compromises another poster's privacy or contain any personal information about a minor.

I've asked this before, Jn's now asked this:

Have you ever taken the time to look through the charter? Do you actually know what it contains?

I didn't say they had reason to, or the charter said they could. I said "they had the power to."

I haven't looked at the charter, or read it, or know what it contains. I think I've said this before. I don't care what it says. I honestly thought I would never have to deal with it, because I thought the people setting it up thought similarly to me, and I'd never have to worry about it.

I still don't think I will. If someone tells me I'm breaking a rule based on something I would never have thought would be breaking a rule (like starting a joke thread in a serious forum) I wouldn't even try to look up the relevant bit in the charter, because if it is there, I object to it, and if it isn't, I object to the person complaining percieving that its there.

Of course, since I'm apparetnly a troublemaker, I guess I should know when my troublemaking might get me kicked out. Or maybe I just like getting kicked off of message boards, that's probably it.

...

jewelsong wrote:

Halplm said

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People who don't behave intelligently and decently, won't stick around too long, because there's no value in it for them

I must disagree. I have been on several unmoderated lists and boards...some long before the current incarnation of today's internet, but similar in concept.

I have found that people who like to provoke a reaction and do so by behaving badly, tend to stick around as long as they are getting a reaction. And on an unmoderated board, they almost always get one - again and again and again.

The value in it for them is the attention they get...and some people will do almost anything to get attention. An unmoderated list or board is a perfect spawning ground.

Now, you say that you are not in favor of "no rules" and the "rules" should involved being able to kick someone out. But you also have said that nobody should define what constitutes decent and intelligent behavior; that the posters should just know, because they are of like mind.

So, who decides the rules? And who gets the power to kick someone out? How would this work in a real life (or a virutal life) situation? Because it sounds nice, but I don't see it actually working in a true situation.

You guys are focusing in on the totally wrong part of my statement.

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A place where everyone could be themselves. A place where people trusted and respected their fellow posters. A place where people could be free to do as they wished, while still maintaining an expectation of intelligence and decent behavior.

There is nothing in there about the "rules." the "rules" wer implied. Things that we would agree on are reasons to kick somone out. This has, I believe, already been done.

What my statment was getting at, was what happens ASIDE from those rules. "Intelligend and decent behavior" is last on the list because it is least important. the REALLY undecent behaveior is taken care of by "the rules." The rest of it is something that ties in to being ourselves and respecting who others are. It is not about "enforcing intelligence and decent behavior" it is "maintaining an expectation of intelligence and decent behavior."

Confinine a set of potentiall offensive topics to a forum or a thread "maintains" that expectation, because if they offend you, you can ignore them. If we start getting people that don't behave that way, action would need to be taken, but I would argue that's the case right now.

The difference is, the group here now has the potential to have this mindset I described, and let Lidless be Lidless and Cerin be Cerin, and C_G be C_G, and SF be SF, and still get along and enjoy ourselves, and not be worried about every little thing that may or may not offend someone. We should be able to be ourselves.

This is not an unmoderated board. I don't know if it claims to be or not. The thing is, we should have the freedom that accompanies an unmoderated board, because the respect and intelligence of our posters means we won't abuse that freedom.