When to moderate and when not........?

[Coco]

Coco - I'm sorry you feel the way you do about your post but it WAS edited because of the reason given and edited down to all that you needed to say at the time.

OK, this is going nowhere, so I shan't comment any further, other than to say PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME OUT TO BE A LIAR!!!!   My post could not have been edited for the reason you give because I DID NOT have access to any personal information about said person.  I formed an opinion about her views on France from what she constantly said on the forum.  The only private communication we ever had was when I asked her if she would like to come to a sale of Christmas cards as she clearly lived fairly locally to me.

And please don't tell me what I needed to say at the time.  If that's not YOU dedicing what I should say, ie censorship, then I don't know what is!  I felt that I needed to say that the poor lady obviously wasn't happy living in France so perhaps it was best that she did what she did, and returned to the UK.  YOU however, told me that you had removed that part because some of the Mods and other members knew why whe was returning and I was too near the truth.  You then asked me not to mention the edit on the open forum because it might spark off a debate about Mods editing anything about people being negative about France.  I didn't understand it at the time but accepted your decision, even though I felt you had changed the sense of my posting.  I don't understand it now but have decided to publish what I was asked to be quiet about because I don't like your tone in making it sound as though I had divulged private and personal information that I had been privvy to and had to be put in my place, which was not the case at all.

[Quillan]

OK you are right it's going nowhere, you win. Fortunatly the moderators keep copies of all things deleted or edited. It's also good for me becuase it also holds the request for me to edit the post in the first place. Cor, talk about shoot the messenger. I thought you wanted to complain about the London Bombing thread?

[opas]

Coco, I could not agree with you more!

Mr O/Outcast has said the same about certain privilaged members being hand in glove with the Mods many times.

Certain members can contravine as many of the forum rules as they like and never be censored, ie,post abusive ,racist and personaly insult members and think it a larf.

I for one will and do contact the forum admin , but then again I tend to sit on the fence and read and not become involved, BUT , If I see something I know is wrong then will act accordingly.

Mrs O

[Tresco]

Mrs O said

'Certain members can contravine as many of the forum rules as they like and never be censored, ie,post abusive ,racist and personaly insult members and think it a larf'.

I for one will and do contact the forum admin , but then again I tend to sit on the fence and read and not become involved, BUT , If I see something I know is wrong then will act accordingly'.

Wow, so it was you who got outcast banned then???????

[Coco]

Fortunatly the moderators keep copies of all things deleted or edited.

And I've still got a copy of your PM telling me why you wanted to edit my posting.  And it's more or less word for word what I have said.

Cor, talk about shoot the messenger.

No, I'm afraid you weren't the "messenger", you were the one who chose to edit because you feared a backlash against postings mentioning negative things about France being pulled.

I thought you wanted to complain about the London Bombing thread?

Indeed, but I was comparing the fact that 60 odd postings that were irrelevant and abusive had been left on (and in fact still ARE on) the forum, whilst a non-offensive opinion of mine had been removed.  I was actually asking the question, when is it felt necessary to moderate and when not?  And I was using those two situations as examples.

Anyway, we've always got on well in the past.  I don't want to have a falling out over this.  We will just have to agree to differ.

Hope you enjoyed the passing of "the Tour".  Personally, I found it a bit of an anti-climax when it came through here a couple of years ago.

[opas]

I will moderate my reply Tresco as you will not harass me into a slanging match.

I am not the one who follows Outies every move and posts he wrote, I could not quote him chapter and verse as you seem able to do, have you got a dossier on his posts?

 It,s the mods/forum admin who ban people, in theory.

Personally I wouldn`t ban Mr O from doing anything

[Coco]

Personally I wouldn`t ban Mr O from doing anything

oo errr Mrs

[Tresco]

have you got a dossier on his posts?

A complete 'dossier' would not be possible.  So many of his posts were deleted for breaking the forum code of conduct, long before he was banned for the third time.

[Russethouse]

<<<<<Coco, I could not agree with you more!

Mr O/Outcast has said the same about certain privilaged members being hand in glove with the Mods many times.

Certain members can contravine as many of the forum rules as they like and never be censored, ie,post abusive ,racist and personaly insult members and think it a larf.

I for one will and do contact the forum admin , but then again I tend to sit on the fence and read and not become involved, BUT , If I see something I know is wrong then will act accordingly.

Mrs O>>>>>>>>>>>

Mrs O - When we receive a complaint we act accordingly and appropriately, we do not always (if ever) go back to the complainant and say we have done x, y or z - so you are only assuming no action has been taken.Sometimes just a word or two is enough without a warning.Sometimes it isn't.

 Of course if 3 complaints are 'upheld' and the person banned you may notice they are missing............

 

[opas]

Russetthouse, you have explained the rules for being banned to me very well, but I already knew them!

My point is that some posters seem to be able to get in a spat on more than one occasion,sure I don`t know if one of the Mods have had a `word `with them or not, but when does a `word` become a `warning`?

It only takes a couple of `chums` to PM or Email each other to conspire and hey presto! the unpopular poster is banned!

As for some posters claiming that they do not use offensive language on the forum because the word is asterixed out......the intent is there and if the word needs the asterix then it is offensive!

 

Mrs O

[Will]

I find this idea of 'privileged' members rather strange. After all this topic is about the editing of a post by somebody who has been a forum member since the very beginning and is known personally to at least two of the moderators. If anybody could be said to be 'privileged' then surely she would meet that description.

However, I can guess to whom you are referring. Let me say what criteria I apply in these circumstances. I'm not saying the other moderators will do the same, or even that my take on it is right. I take a broader look at what the member's contribution to the forum is. If they make a lot of useful posts, but sometimes get provoked into a slanging match, then although I wish they would just ignore the provocation and leave things alone sometimes, I still see them as a useful forum member. However when their provocative, insulting posts outnumber the useful ones I tend to take a different view, especially when they are ones who tend to start off the arguments. From that stance it was a pity that Outcast had to be so provocative as he had some useful things to say too sometimes.

As far as the editing of the post which started off this particular discussion is concerned, I have to say that it made me a bit uneasy at the time. I for one felt that it showed a former forum member in a negative light and said that she had been very unhappy in France (unfortunately the original post has now gone so I have to rely on my original impression rather than the actual words used). This was at odds with the many messages of support she had received, and the fact that she had apparently made many friends on this and other forums. The member had enjoyed a good whinge from time to time about the less pleasant aspects of living here - who hasn't. But although she had not had an easy time in France, she had, I think, remained positive and was sorry to go.

Now that didn't break any forum rules as such, and had the person being discussed still been around to respond herself it may have put a different light on things.

But most importantly that same person had previously posted (in a topic completely unrelated to this discussion) that having things she had said taken out of context and reposted elsewhere (not necessarily on this forum) had caused her considerable distress. That is why I fully supported the action taken by another moderator.

I hope that those concerned can understand this and that this can be the end of this discussion.

[opas]

Will, I rest my case. You have just proved by your own admission that there is one set of  rules for one and one for the others.

Mrs O

[Teamedup]

There is only one set of rules.

If someone's ambition is to be abrasive, insult and cause trouble every time they post, then they will never be treat in the same  way as someone who posts and isn't like that. We can all go off on one from time to time, even the most helpful of people. But that is allowed by society anyway, we excuse and cope. We don't have such feelings towards trouble makers.

[Will]

Mrs O, I somehow thought you would interpret my attempt at a frank and honest reply in that way .

I think Teamedup has got hold of the right end of the stick.

[Joh]

Well , to moderate or not ,

I visit other forums on the WWW.

  This website as a whole is not in the top flight. In fact no other forum that I visit has no-where near the number of forums or threads deleted as this one!  To expand on that statement, No other forum that I visit has had any threads or posts deleted.............So what doe's that say about the LF members ?   I can understand the need for "Moderators" But in my opinion other websites  that I visit do not get half as much C**p replies to postings as this one. I also comprehend the need to delete postings where applicable. Also one should appreciate that this site is a magazine portal and therefore the risk of litigation from postings is always at the forefront of the publishers mind.

But at the end of the day it is only the members that make the forum.

Right that was my two sou'

Terry

AND why do so many topics turn into personal slanging match's

[Iceni]

I have refrained from posting on this and the other mentioned thread so far but I cannot hold the fingers back any longer. I also run a forum and we have moderators so the following comes from personal experience. I enjoy this site and am well aware that what gets posted on here gets onto the Internet quite quickly. I am sticking my 2 pennorth in just to help/cloud the issue further.

Coco made a good guess, most of us had made that and I for one can not see why her post was pulled. If the person in question had made the request or the original post had been pulled in the first instance when it was made, well that I would have understood but others posted before Coco. I presume the person is still a registered member and so the hope was that they would post in reply?

As to the audacity of the suggestion that there are two sets of rules, one for a small group of long term members and one for the rest of us - well those that cannot see that this is true obviously read a totally different forum from me. This forum is skewed and certain really nasty posts get through with no moderation and the members do it again and again. If there was a 'three hits and you are out' method of moderating, they would be long gone BUT because they MAY at some time give advice this is tolerated and so it goes on, even to the extent that it destroys what should have been a thread to bring everyone together. Have any messages from that thread been removed - I doubt it.

Finally, and this has nothing to do with the above at all, anyone who posts a message that breaks the law must be removed at once - them and their message. If this is not done ASAP it just shows that anything goes and so it will.

As Terry said so well...

AND why do so many topics turn into personal slanging match's

and why do the moderators allow it???????

[Teamedup]

Firstly let me say that I have been on quite a few boards, where I tend to lurk, where posts get deleted and quite often too.

As I was personally attacked on my first post on here by a person who may well have been an original member and it took a call to London, from me, to get it deleted, then I would think that this sort of activity has always happened on this board. And for all the member did stop posting eventually, they were not kicked off the board either.

Contrary to some people thinking I spend every waking hour on here, I didn't see what Coco posted. If  it was about a member who has recently returned to the UK, then all I can say is that I actually was amazed that they were moving back, I really believed that they thought of the two options, ie France or England, that France always won hands down. Hence my surprise that they said they were moving back.

And if it gets a bit heated sometimes, well, either you join in the mêlée or not. If I want to have my say, I will, often I don't.

I don't actually want the board to change, although it will evolve as things do.

[Tresco]

For me, I remember the original post coco made, surely it was some time ago now, it hasn't been on the 'front page' for a few days anyway. At the time  Coco started this thread it made me ponder the sharing of pms on a public forum, mainly because I have seen this done to drastic effect elsewhere. I thought at the time that I would be unhappy if details (however sparse and carefully worded) of a pm relationship I was in were published openly on the forum, I  would be deeply resentful,  then time passed, there seemed to be no problem. 

i agree with you I think Di, in the content of that post, I also thought that nothing Coco said elsewhere was mean, vindictive or  negative, just sparse info, attempting to answer the Q raised; I can't see why it was edited by mods.

We have seen pure trolls (Padraig) treated with mirth rather than condemnation, regular posters (I won't name them in chance I get accused of having a crush on them) in various guises slinging dirt around, people who no one might call a troll making a mockery of the generous time and effort and personal exposure given in responses people make (that J***Z and Xle whatever, Plato comes Home, remember how much of a go he was given?

To me this indicates the rules here are pretty fair, but more importantly that they are exercised with caution, and discretion, which I have always thought 'arbiters' or 'judges' should be able to use/have in 'real life'.  I don't think the forum is 'skewed' as a result of this, which is in direct oppostion to the view you have stated.

For me one of the good things about the moderation here is that it is exercised cautiously, and judiciously, each case on it's merits. All of which leavess me in direct conflict with Di (Iceni) and Terry (JOH) who says this

This website as a whole is not in the top flight. In fact no other forum that I visit has no-where near the number of forums or threads deleted as this one!  To expand on that statement, No other forum that I visit has had any threads or posts deleted.............So what doe's that say about the LF members ?   I can understand the need for "Moderators" But in my opinion other websites  that I visit do not get half as much C**p replies to postings as this one.

And to continue, however much I may disagree to me a different view is always interesting, and apart fom obvious Trolls like Padraig I have never contacted admin to complain, in which case it was a 'heads up' rather than a complaint.

What do you mean by c***p replies Terry? There is no rule against a useless reply, perhaps you mean something different than me by that word?

As to threads being deleted, well that seems to me to be happening less recently. 

One site I visit has a 'bin' for threads started that either were or became ridiculous/offensive, and there is a lot of interesting (but also ridiculous/offensive) stuff in there.

Post edited, by me

[timc17]

Having read all the postings on this thread i now know the whole world has gone mad.

To whinge about a pulled posting when hundreds of people have just been killed or injured by an appalling act of mis-guided and selfish stupidity just about sums up what pathetic creatures we have become.

 

 

tim 

 

[Deimos]

One aspect to the editing/deletion of posts and threads that is possibly relevant is how open such actions by the moderators are. As an example, there is one French Forum where posts are regularly edited and/or deleted by the administrator but if anybody notices, nobody will mention it (maybe for fear of being banned ?). Thus such activities do go on elsewhere but are not raised for public open discussion. On LF, moderator actions are public, open and often discussed maybe giving a skewed impression of the amount that actually happens.

For example, such a thread as this would have been long ago deleted and several contributors banned of one particular other French Forum.

Another aspect is that statistically, have twice as many members and you are likely to have twice as many trolls, get twice as many offensive posts, etc.

As I do not know about the specific case that started this thread, it seems to me that in general one great strength of this forum is that it has a set of rules that are used in an open manner. There are other French interest forums where people have been banned without warning and without breaking and forum rules.

Ian

[Quillan]

Just read that last post after typing a reply off line which I will paste below. In the Gite section a few of us complained about a lack of service from a advertising company. They had a forum for their clients to use. Some of us complained about the quality of service offered by this company so they shut the forum down, now thats censorship. Anyway....

Sorry about the big font but I am writing this offline.

 

The moderators are watching this thread but for no other reason than to take the members comments elsewhere, to debate them, and see if we can take them on board and make the forum a better place. I wanted you all to know that just in case you thought we were not bothered.

 

As moderators we do have a few problems dealing with some of the issues raised. Some of the moderators may agree with some of the comments but the problem comes with the practical issues of actually reacting, let me explain.

 

The first issue is actually banning a person. There are two parts to this. The first part is that we need a majority agreement within the moderators group and then permission from Forum Admin. This means that there can be a lengthy discussion before anything actually happens. There also at times has to be some flexibility within our three strike rule. Do you give an official warning to a person who has posted three or four hundred times and then makes a minor infringement of the rules? Surely a quick edit of their post followed by a quick email to tell them what we have done and the problem is solved. Again on the editing side and post deletion I have to repeat myself again to tell you that the originator/author of the post is ALWAYS informed.

 

Now the problem with banning is that the banned person can come back (as we have all seen). They can create an email address with one of many companies like Yahoo etc and there is nothing we can do. Recently we have had a problem with the software that whilst we banned a person they kept posting. How was this done, well they never logged out of the forum or turned their PC off for many weeks. They needed to logout of the forum to be stopped from logging in. This shows us that a) there was a big problem (now fixed) within the software and b) this person knew about it.

 

What do we do about these people coming back, well nothing is the answer, they have to be treated as a new forum member. I can hear the sharp intake of breath and people thinking am I real, can’t I spot a person coming back straight away. Well yes I can but it’s an educated guess and that’s all it is. We do not have a mechanism with this forum software that gives concrete proof that it is the same person, If we delete or ban a login because we think it’s a previous banned member coming back then we could end up in all sorts of trouble if we get it wrong. If we did get sued and would the members who pointed out that A (previously banned) was actually the same person as new login B  and in fact they were C and nothing to do with A whatsoever will they pay any court costs if you see where I am coming from.

 

I personally would like to see a method used by other forums implemented that requires a proper email address from a known ISP and hotmail, yahoo and such other accounts banned. Unfortunately we do have normal members here that do use these type of accounts. So do we sacrifice them for the good of the forum and the ability to lessen the chance of banned users coming back?

 

In a recent thread there has been a certain amount of verbal abuse between groups of people. The conclusion I and other moderators came to was that one or two people started being abuse towards long standing members of the forum who quite frankly had tangled with these people before. In fact even we could see that one or two people were literally following other members around the forum making snide posts whenever they posted. They in turn answered back, which is their right…. to a degree under normal circumstances.

 

What other members would not know is that the long standing members had complained to us about what was going on and asked us to do something. Unfortunately we tried but couldn’t because of the fact there was the bug in the forum software and Forum Admin was not around. These members therefore thought we were doing nothing and, rightly or wrongly, took matters in to their own hands and answered back like for like and then, well as we all saw it went down hill rapidly after that.

 

On other occasions we have decide to let a thread run and burn it’s self out because it was felt that by taking any action we would stir things up even more. I mean we are always being accused of censoring so why stick our heads out even further.

 

So I am afraid there is no great conspiracy theory here, in fact there is very little of anything here at all. I tell you one thing it’s the one, the only and the last time I ever moderate a forum. At times it’s just not worth the grief.

 

Why did I ask Coco not to mention the post edit and my PM/email. To be truthful, as I said before

[Deby]

Just to add my two penneth in.

My recent post in the Gite & Post Bag sections were deleted as it contravened advertising rules.  I honestly did not mean to break the rules, so it was pulled.  This was fine by me and I did not see it as censorship, but there was a complaint and I would rather it be pulled if people felt strongly about it.  After all the post can be interpreted in a number of different ways depending on your viewpoint. Lets face it we all have different views and this must be very difficult for the moderators to manage. I think generally the moderators do a good job.

I just felt that the week in question is so hotly sought after - 99.9% of businesses are already booked  and coupled with the short notice it would not conflict with LF Magazine.

If it upset people then so be it, but it was not the intention. Do you think I should have been banned outright, I would wish to think not as my motives were not mercenary.

Incidentally, someone other than me re-worded the same thread in the form of a recommendation.  I would like to think that their motives were genuine and not to incite a slanging match. 

Deby

[Ron Avery]

It seems to me that on this forum, as in life,  you take regard of the opinions of some people over others because you know them or respect them and that is what happens here, I for one having seen the metres of screen space of abuse on other Forums have no problem with the admin of this Forum and we must accept that sometimes mistakes are made and everything cannot be to our liking all the time. I  hope that after Quillan's post, we can put this whole episode to bed and get back to giving good advice to those who seek it about living in France.

[Philmco]

Quillan,

Being a moderator must be rather like being a club committee member; I've been there, and like you, I say never again! There will always be a tiny minority who will criticise every action, and be quick with accusations of favouritism and injustice. The same individuals are conspicuously unwilling to do anything except take advantage of the club (forum?) facilities. I am sure the majority of forum members appreciate the time and effort you and the other Moderators put into making this an informative, interesting, frequently amusing, and occasionally infuriating place to visit. Thanks, guys and girls!

[Teamedup]

RA, I don't think that there is a whole chunk of correspondance missing. I'm afraid nothing on TV caught my eye last night and I was half looking on here, half watching tv and reading a bit too, but until I posted at just after 1am french time, there were no other posts that I saw.