Moderator Feedback

[Beavah]

Yah, time for some instant moderator feedback from the community.

 

OGE opted this morning to terminate all of the active threads in the Issues and Politics forum, which I reckon sets a new record for moderator intervention in that area which is supposed to be lightly moderated.

 

Please use the little thumb things on this message to "vote" your opinion.

 

Thumbs Up: I agree with OGE, he was right to kill all the threads. They were gettin' out of hand.

 

Thumbs Down: I disagree with OGE. That was too heavy-handed an intervention, especially for the nature of the I&P forums.

 

Yeh can feel free to elaborate on your vote in replies, but please vote first.

 

Beavah

 

[GernBlansten]

We should invoke Blansten's Law in the I&P section. After a thread reaches 10 pages, it should be closed. After that point, the dicussion has strayed from the original intent and becomes meaningless sniping at each other.

OGE did the right thing.

[sherminator505]

Thumbs up.

 

While I expect the I/P forums to be a bit wild and wooly, some posters don't seem to realize when they've wandered away from the topic at hand and gotten into some pretty personal stuff (or maybe they just don't care). I try to keep a few points in mind when reading and or participating in these threads:

 

1) Merlyn is who he is. He is not a Scouter, and he has never claimed to be one. He is our resident pot-stirrer. Feel free to argue with him if you feel you must, but first consider the source.

 

2) Ed likes to argue. He has a heart of gold and is no doubt a top-notch Scouter, but he can give you a HUGE headache if you let him.

 

3) Gern is a true lefty. I find myself agreeing with him more than, say, Ed. Often he makes the same points I do and does it so well that I have nothing to add.

 

4) Beavah is a common-sense individual who I tend to agree with about half the time. The written accent is neat but a bit hard to read and understand at times.

 

5) GaHillBilly and BrentAllen are true righties, and they make me cringe at times. But generally speaking, they mean well when they stick to the topic at hand. They do, however, tend to wander at times...

 

6) BadenP must have had a difficult life. He's just bitter. But he means well.

 

7) My leanings tend to stand in sharp contrast to Ed's, and I like to argue, too. Witness the results.

 

8) John-in-KC really seems to be in the know when it comes to Scouting-related topics, and I respect his opinion even when I disagree.

 

9) OGE is a great moderator and seems to know just when to step in. I really admire him.

 

10) As bad as some of the regulars get sometimes, it could always get worse. Anybody remember Kawidaphoenix?

[Twocubdad]

I generally don't read or participate in the I&P stuff, unless the title of the thread seems to have a connection to scouting, as HillBilly's thread did.

 

At face value I thought there was a lot of stuff in there I disagreed with, but not necessarily inflammatory. I wouldn't have closed it, but neither did I have any interest in responding to it.

 

I will allow that I haven't followed the threads on which it was based, so maybe there was some flame throwing going on there on which OGE based his call.

[WAKWIB]

I think sherminator summed it up pretty good. The mod was right on closing the thread on gays in scouting. It had gone way far from topic and was getting over-the-top ugly. I don't post much. But I read the forums frequently and in a fairly thorough manner. My politics and religion are very right of center. But this forum probably isn't the greatest place to have a knock-down, drag-out about it IMHO. And please take this as a kindly criticism from a lowly knave, but I think there are a few here that could learn something about the economy of words. (got to give Merlyn some credit on that score as he keeps his stuff short and sweet ). Also take a moment to re-read your post before you fling it. Don't be in such a hurry to throw your stuff on the wall that you fail to make sure it's packed correctly.

As I mentioned in a post earlier this morning, we do well to remember that many eyes are on this forum. Most of us who post are active Scouters and we should make our posts keeping in mind that it reflects on our position and our organization.

[HICO_Eagle]

I voted thumbs up (no surprise since I actually initiated the request to close one of the threads). The two threads in particular were getting way out of hand IMHO.

 

I've only been reading these forums for the past year or so and generally they're great. There is only one individual that I've decided to just not bother reading anymore -- I wish the ignore feature worked on thread postings but I'll just ignore manually. As for the rest, I learned a long time ago to filter postings by what I've seen of past postings. As is so often in life, there are very few people I agree or disagree with 100% (including myself) and learning flows from multi-way discussion.

 

I put links to other sources for a reason. I don't want someone thinking I'm cherry-picking quotes or quoting out of context but that only works if they actually follow the link and do some reading themselves. Otherwise it's just talking past each other which is where I saw about half of the AGW thread going. As for the other thread ... I think it's clear some of us just aren't going to agree so rather than raise blood pressure and vitriol, I think I'm just going to avoid related threads.

[BadenP]

While I am not a fan of censorship in most forms in the two cases here I think OGE did the right thing, it is one thing to throw an insult at a poster and whole other one to dissect every fault of another with the malice being shown on these two threads. Now if only that eagle problem thread would disappear.

 

And sherm for the record I truly am not a bitter person, lol.

[Horizon]

Happy to have good moderators who enforce the Scout Oath and Law. Killing threads is a good thing at times.

 

While I am sure that a moderator or two might stray over the line sometimes, that is a price I am happy to pay to have regulated forums that do not go too far down the sewer.

 

 

[scoutingagain]

While I did not participate all that much in either thread I had been following them. The Gay Question thread had gone off in a creepy direction as Lisabob put it and I agree it should have been closed. The Global warming thread, while getting a bit testy at time had not crossed the line yet, IMHO. One thumbs up, One thumbs down.

 

That said, I agree I'm glad the moderators are there to bring the threads back and monitor them.

 

SA

[evmori]

Thumbs up!

 

And yeah sherm I do enjoy a good argument! You got a problem with that?

[Eamonn]

Have to admit to really not following the thread about Global Warming.

Truth is that I really don't know enough about it to be of much use.

 

The thread about gays was it seemed going no place fast.

While I didn't close it.

There was one forum member who just wasn't really my cup of tea.

I very well might not be this members cup of tea either!

Having just re-read the past few posts in that thread, I do support OGE and think he did the right thing.

Ea.

Have just noticed the other closed Thread.

(OGE - Man you were busy!)

Seems to me that OGE was right on the money with this one.(This message has been edited by Eamonn)

[Beavah]

Yah, I can't vote on my own message

 

I wasn't followin' the gays thread, but in just skimmin' through the tail end I couldn't even figure it out. It was a bit odd.

 

I was participatin' in the Global Warming thread. That was doin' what those things always seem to do these days, become a partisan shouting match. I wasn't bothered by it particularly, and there were still some meaningful exchanges goin' on.

 

I didn't care for da style of the other thread, but I found the substance really interestin'. In some ways there's some truth to it. In other ways it's at least informative to all the rest of us that someone thinks there's some truth to it, eh? I think with a bit of editing and shortening it could have made for an interestin' discussion.

 

Mostly, I'm more fond of moderators doin' some more gentle shepherding through private messages than closing threads. Maybe that was tried first, I wouldn't know. But I'd like to see that tried first.

 

Though I confess Gern's notion of automatically closin' a thread after 10 pages does seem attractive .

 

Beavah

 

[acco40]

I have a higher threshold than what was displayed in the "gays" thread than what OGE displayed. My preference would have been to possibly ban (short term) or "chill" a particular poster, not close the thread.

 

Issues and Politics does come with a warning - In answer to many requests, we established a separate forum for these topics. Those not interested can skip this forum instead of spending time reading unwanted messages to identify content. and thus we should have a very high "pain" threshold for that particular area.

 

I may be biased, being a moderator, but I also don't like folks asking for threads to be closed in the thread itself. Either send a private message to the moderator(s) of your choice or simply leave. I've also noted that the moderator section has not had any posts at all for over six months. I prefer to have a moderator "debate" before we take action but as it exists now, the moderator with the lowest threshold may act as they please.

 

FYI, in no way am I trying to imply that OGE's action of closing the thread was in any way "wrong" just not what I would have done.

 

That last comment sounds much like the comedy routine reply (Seinfeld?) - not that there's anything wrong with that.. (This message has been edited by acco40)

[Lisabob]

That's an interesting point, acco, about making requests in the moderator forum (or pm'ing a moderator) rather than putting it in the thread, itself. For my part, I'm never sure where moderators are likely to look. The inactivity of the moderator forum suggested to me that this really wouldn't have been a place to catch anybody's attention. So let me just ask - do you guys read/monitor that forum? And if I wanted to contact the moderator in charge of a particular part of this board, how would I know which one of you regularly reads which areas? Do you have some kind of division of labor that you could publicize in a thread in the moderator section, or something along those lines?

 

About the rules of decorum, yes, in the I & P forum there needs to be a lot of leeway since people will inevitably, and passionately, disagree on sensitive topics. I would have preferred to think that this could be done in a more civil manner than was displayed in toward the end of the recently closed threads though.

 

For me, when it gets to a point where posters are seeming to threaten each other, it is time to step in. So I suppose I was ok with OGE's actions, though I would also have welcomed a public or private statement from moderators to the posters who might have been going a bit overboard. As noted, that could have occurred already, too, and I just didn't know about it.

 

 

[Scoutfish]

My participation in I&P was minimal, but I did read quite a bit.

I completely agree with OGE for a partivcular reason:

While there should be alot of leeway and freedom in I&P about the posted topics , the posts and commenst should in some way pertain to the posted topics!

 

Talk about your Hatfield and McCoys here.... Looking at all the posts, at some point, somebody didn't agree with somebody else...ok in itself, buyt it went from political jabs to personal jabs, insults and Inuendos of threats. Does anybody remember exactly what the "original" disagreement was about? Or is it a case of the Hatfield and McCoys : "WEll, it's just always been that way!"