swishnev
July 14th, 2005, 06:03 PM
This was passed along to me from someone I know who is still a member. Check out the Bold part, this is not true as members have been banished completely
Post from Esto (original thread moved )
Hello All.
It took until today for me to iron out my role in these Forums.
History: I was the original Smartgroups mod and later the Admin in terms of the actual day to day. Viper and Newbody1 are my super-capable successors. And we have a great multi-lingual team of mods that we expand whenever we can.
I graduated from Admin to laison with Dave and Kim. And took on other chores that are often not that public.
Today after being a bit disturbed by what I would call unnecessary negativity, I clarified my role in these Forums and the way the system will work.
When any Moderator finds a post (new or part of a thread) that she or he deems to be negative and provocative, it will be immediately deleted. Mods will no longer attempt to instruct negative posters in threads.
In a public area like ABOUT YMMSS or TESTIMONIALS a note will be substituted explaining the deletion and giving the uncontactable guest a way to contact the Mods. In member areas a polite PM will go to the person involved and the deleted post will be mailed to a common account mods have.
In the event the person repeats the behavior, the Mod will pass that person on to Viper or Newbody1 and they will try to work their diplomatic magic via PMs. Again records will be kept.
In the event their ministrations are not successful, the person is passed on to me. I write a pleasant note indicating how crazy it is to be getting bent out of shape about this but that the person is basically creating havoc and either needs to start pm-ing whoever he or she has a problem with or sublimating their behavior somehow.
In the event of future problems, after passing through three stages, a mild banishment will take effect -- a week or two.
That is about as far as it goes. Well, if it goes farther we have not had to find out yet and I hope we don't. I have no interest in excluding anyone from these Forums. If they get to Kim and Dave from me that becomes a membership issue.
A natural question is what standard I and others use to make decisions which are clearly judgments of a sort.
Our Terms of Use is the usual standard and things are clearly spelled out there. But there are cases when only the broadest statements in the TOU apply. That is the right of moderators to delete or move any post for any reason. Applied in a negative way this could be an invitation to prolonged torment of a member.
That is why I title this thread The Negative Is On The Way Out. If all goes as I hope, it will only take one or two violations to result in step one of this process. The person should be in Viper and Newbody's hands soon after any further negativity. Then in a timely manner to me.
The process should be a good deal quicker than it has been.
Finally, there is a subtle but real difference between constructive criticism and negativity. I could name several posters who understand this and whose comments are just as trenchant and hard to deal with as the most negative of our posters. But they do not -- or they rarely -- cross the line into outright negativity. In such posts a light editorial brush may be applied.
I believe no one can fault these Forums for not being fair. If anything I think we have been fair to the point of taxing the emotions of members who can only take so much negativity without palling and getting discouraged about the Forums and even YM.
This post is a way of saying that prolonged negativity simply will not happen. It is a violation of our terms and will be treated with speed.
I am glad to be writing this when we have turned enough of a corner so that this does not appear like circling the wagons. Au contraire, this is my way of hopefully helping prepare our Forums to welcome a sequence of positive happenings that is beginning now and will increase over the coming months and years.
Sorry to take up so much space, but I needed to get this said.
Best, S
Post from Esto (original thread moved )
Hello All.
It took until today for me to iron out my role in these Forums.
History: I was the original Smartgroups mod and later the Admin in terms of the actual day to day. Viper and Newbody1 are my super-capable successors. And we have a great multi-lingual team of mods that we expand whenever we can.
I graduated from Admin to laison with Dave and Kim. And took on other chores that are often not that public.
Today after being a bit disturbed by what I would call unnecessary negativity, I clarified my role in these Forums and the way the system will work.
When any Moderator finds a post (new or part of a thread) that she or he deems to be negative and provocative, it will be immediately deleted. Mods will no longer attempt to instruct negative posters in threads.
In a public area like ABOUT YMMSS or TESTIMONIALS a note will be substituted explaining the deletion and giving the uncontactable guest a way to contact the Mods. In member areas a polite PM will go to the person involved and the deleted post will be mailed to a common account mods have.
In the event the person repeats the behavior, the Mod will pass that person on to Viper or Newbody1 and they will try to work their diplomatic magic via PMs. Again records will be kept.
In the event their ministrations are not successful, the person is passed on to me. I write a pleasant note indicating how crazy it is to be getting bent out of shape about this but that the person is basically creating havoc and either needs to start pm-ing whoever he or she has a problem with or sublimating their behavior somehow.
In the event of future problems, after passing through three stages, a mild banishment will take effect -- a week or two.
That is about as far as it goes. Well, if it goes farther we have not had to find out yet and I hope we don't. I have no interest in excluding anyone from these Forums. If they get to Kim and Dave from me that becomes a membership issue.
A natural question is what standard I and others use to make decisions which are clearly judgments of a sort.
Our Terms of Use is the usual standard and things are clearly spelled out there. But there are cases when only the broadest statements in the TOU apply. That is the right of moderators to delete or move any post for any reason. Applied in a negative way this could be an invitation to prolonged torment of a member.
That is why I title this thread The Negative Is On The Way Out. If all goes as I hope, it will only take one or two violations to result in step one of this process. The person should be in Viper and Newbody's hands soon after any further negativity. Then in a timely manner to me.
The process should be a good deal quicker than it has been.
Finally, there is a subtle but real difference between constructive criticism and negativity. I could name several posters who understand this and whose comments are just as trenchant and hard to deal with as the most negative of our posters. But they do not -- or they rarely -- cross the line into outright negativity. In such posts a light editorial brush may be applied.
I believe no one can fault these Forums for not being fair. If anything I think we have been fair to the point of taxing the emotions of members who can only take so much negativity without palling and getting discouraged about the Forums and even YM.
This post is a way of saying that prolonged negativity simply will not happen. It is a violation of our terms and will be treated with speed.
I am glad to be writing this when we have turned enough of a corner so that this does not appear like circling the wagons. Au contraire, this is my way of hopefully helping prepare our Forums to welcome a sequence of positive happenings that is beginning now and will increase over the coming months and years.
Sorry to take up so much space, but I needed to get this said.
Best, S