POFUsers.com - Plenty of Fish Users Forum

Well...I think this post you put up says it all to an extent, in that, the rules can be perceived as broken when all you wrote below becomes a poster's reality..when communication breaks down and when the site's ethos (as described by those three rules) is abused to suit that person who reads too much into what has been written and takes it too literally before taking the time to ask what was meant openly...the rules are very few on here and I expect that it would be ok to question what someone else has written without being accused of flame-baiting or attempting to troll and I would expect that it's fair game to retaliate in kind, not with insults but with return questioning and have an amnesty against being seen to be a prolific rule breaker or antagonist.

I believe that openness and transparency is vital and that mind-games which are a total pain in the arse and an unnecessary evil when it comes to exerting your alpha male dominance amongst the few who are your captive audience whilst they are prepared to read these forums (let's not forget that internet forums by their very nature are ultimately transient)...it would be better that those who are so caught up in being ego driven individuals just got off their high-horses and quit the pretence to be human and their own unqualified self ( who the hell needs validation anyway..particularly for being a monumental prick?)..we are who we are and are entitled to expect that we are accepted as the who we are without scorn or derision..that only applies if I like you btw..

Mod Zombie wrote:I wish that everyone would just get along.

I wish people wouldn't be so worried about having to look "good".

I wish people would suspend there own personal agendas and acknowledge the power of their typed words. Or unwritten words. Or words deleted.

I wish people would read the rules and look up the word "insult" if they were confused, and measure their audience.

I wish that the expectations presented by the posters for moderatoration were clearer, so that we could better serve.

I wish I had a clear guideline for forum fungus protocol.

I wish that some forum topics didn't turn into such a shark frenzy.

I wish people would look more to self-governance, rather than an appeal to authority.

I wish people could intuitively know when they were crossing that line and respond accordingly.

I wish that people could understand that this is a small site, and that everyone's input is as important as it is.

And I wish that they would extend this to the other members on this site.

I wish that this was easy.

I wish that the chatroom was occupied.

I am going to be there and maintain a certain hope.

MZ

Well...I think this post you put up says it all to an extent, in that, the rules can be perceived as broken when all you wrote below becomes a poster's reality..when communication breaks down and when the site's ethos (as described by those three rules) is abused to suit that person who reads too much into what has been written and takes it too literally before taking the time to ask what was meant openly...the rules are very few on here and I expect that it would be ok to question what someone else has written without being accused of flame-baiting or attempting to troll and I would expect that it's fair game to retaliate in kind, not with insults but with return questioning and have an amnesty against being seen to be a prolific rule breaker or antagonist.

I believe that openness and transparency is vital and that mind-games which are a total pain in the arse and an unnecessary evil when it comes to exerting your alpha male dominance amongst the few who are your captive audience whilst they are prepared to read these forums (let's not forget that internet forums by their very nature are ultimately transient)...it would be better that those who are so caught up in being ego driven individuals just got off their high-horses and quit the pretence to be human and their own unqualified self ( who the hell needs validation anyway..particularly for being a monumental prick?)..we are who we are and are entitled to expect that we are accepted as the who we are without scorn or derision..that only applies if I like you btw...

Wot?

If you take the trouble to be more specific in what you are actually questioning, I might be able to be more helpful towards you.

I really don't see that it is broken at all. You may have a couple of rambunctious overgrown adolescents, but that's to be expected. My experience here has been positive. I appreciate that most posters can state their opinion without getting nasty.

I said most.

I say make them moderate for week and see how they like it. Maybe then they'll behave.

I actually think a wrinkle to the problem *might* be how we are allowed to go off topic. That means a thread can get derailed fairly quickly.
But I wouldn't want it to go to a rigid extreme where chatting wasn't allowed at all; those off the cuff remarks are too funny to lose.
Perhaps a workable compromise might be: a part of each post MUST be on topic. That might keep a topic on track, allow for banter and *might* serve to remind those engaged in a slag-fest that there actually IS a topic on the go.

Mod Zombie wrote:I think that these rules:

Rule 1)Privacy
Do not post sensitive information: i.e. Phone numbers and home addresses.

Rule 2) Conduct
No insults or slanderous libel. Be nice to each other. We reserve the right to edit abusive insults out of your posts. Do not post any content about another user that could be considered untrue, slanderous libel or defamation of character.

Rule 3)Trolling
No trouble making, people who persistently try to cause arguments by means of trolling will be contacted by a moderator.

...are rules that are pretty clear to me.

But where is it broken?

MZ

Rule 1) is so clear it needs no debate.

After that...

i think that posters need to keep a clear distinction between the Chat threads and the Debate threads. And i am not sure what has happened to produce this Mod thread, so i may be leaping in feet first without a clue.

Two recent examples of good posting, in my view, from the Debate thread.

The first began in the Ground Zero Mosque thread. Jo van saw that Moonbat had come up with an argument about Religion that was interesting but, as Moonbat said, not about the proposed mosque, so Jo van set out a second thread, the one about Religion. That was acknowledgement that the original thread had the potential for "derailment" but Jo van didn't take it on in the Mosque thread, he went elsewhere.

If you look again at that thread, under PoF rules i think it would have been "called" as derailed long before that point, though. So i appreciate the facility to take a thread's starting point and move on subjects around that, areas that touch on the main topic but aren't quite that. A curve in the debate should be allowed, a right-angled turn not.

The second recent thread i put forward as a good example of Debate and not Chat is what happened in the middle of the thread about Venables. Chopper has incredibly strong views about the subject. He made a comment about his perception of Restless - post 4 on page 2. What could have been a major battle actually was held back on both sides to a minor skirmish by personal restraint because Restless acknowledged Chopper's strength of feeling in his polite replies and so by post 5 on page 4, Chopper apologised - with reasons for his original comment - and harmony has been restored. Light-touch Modding was successful there.

If we hold on to Chopper and Restless ( you know what i mean) as an example of politeness and understanding, we can all distinguish between what is meant by Rules 2) and 3) and what is the intent when someone tries to break them.

i suspect sometimes our Canadian cousins shake their collective head about the posting style of "the UK lot", but we don't get formal debating lessons as part of our curriculum and so our posting style tends to the discursive rather that the constructed. Leeway on both sides of the Atlantic is usually shown but perhaps a following of the words and not the manner of expression can stand us all in good stead. And taking lessons from "the other side" can also be useful. Sometimes the topic doesn't warrant analysis / synthesis, but we all could do with looking at where the previous poster has taken their stand and responding to what is obviously their opinion - and not pretending it is their belief that it is fact.

Personally, i find the PM facility invaluable. If i have a personal comment to make about a post(er) that i feel isn't relevant to the topic of a Debate thread, i use a PM to make it. This could be a "jolly good post" comment, or a "i mainly agree with you so don't want to make this small point counter to your argument on the thread because that might derail it". Some reply, some don't. But at least the thread stays on topic.

i think the lightness of the Rules here can be good for us. But the fewer the Rules, the more mature the attitude of the posters needs to be. i am not sure one can legislate for that.

We all have views. We are all, allegedly, adults. Using the Chat threads and PMs to discover the people behind the posts would help to maintain the different natures of the Chat and Debate threads.

Am i saying that the Debate Forum does need more Modding than it is currently receiving? Probably. Should it? Probably not, if we all acted as adults. Can we do that? The jury's out on that one.

In my opinion, as always.

.

.
Ah. too late to the party, as always, me.

Have just read the I wish thread and it's too late to edit the above post.

Simple word. Respect.

More complicated word. Anonymity.

As there is only one person i know of who uses their real name to post, anonymity means that one's online persona can be anything one wants it to be. So there is no reason to attack the poster at all, especially if one thinks one has an inkling of their real life character. (This is why i don't like references to people's real names, even in the Chat threads - seems to make a mockery of the idea of a pseudonym, so why have one at all?)

Respect the words and post and step back from the persona that posted it - note, i said the persona, not the person. Seems like a good principle to me.

.

My opinion is that the current rules that are in place are adequate. Most of the members do seem to be capable of knowing where to draw the line and know what is and isn't acceptable.

However, my perception is that recently there does seem to be a problem with posts being deleted that clearly don't breach any of the rules. A recent example was when myself and Jo Van were sharing banter on a thread in the debate section. No other posters were addressed, I wasn't insulted by anything he said and I'm pretty certain he wasn't insulted by anything I'd said. So I was pretty surprised to find when I logged on later that all of our posts had been deleted and there was a note saying that the thread had been locked until tempers cool. That one really had me scratching my head.

We have been told a number of times that insulting posts will only be deleted if the aggrieved party complains. I'm wondering if this is still the case. Having the situation where posts are removed simply because they may be perceived as insulting by a third party who may not fully appreciate the situation would remove quite a lot of the freedom on this site and the reason that a lot of people enjoy posting here.

I'd like it to stay like POF but without silly rules if possible.

[quote="Fingerless Glove"]Well...I think this post you put up says it all to an extent, in that, the rules can be perceived as broken when all you wrote below becomes a poster's reality..when communication breaks down and when the site's ethos (as described by those three rules) is abused to suit that person who reads too much into what has been written and takes it too literally before taking the time to ask what was meant openly...the rules are very few on here and I expect that it would be ok to question what someone else has written without being accused of flame-baiting or attempting to troll and I would expect that it's fair game to retaliate in kind, not with insults but with return questioning and have an amnesty against being seen to be a prolific rule breaker or antagonist.

I believe that openness and transparency is vital and that mind-games which are a total pain in the arse and an unnecessary evil when it comes to exerting your alpha male dominance amongst the few who are your captive audience whilst they are prepared to read these forums (let's not forget that internet forums by their very nature are ultimately transient)...it would be better that those who are so caught up in being ego driven individuals just got off their high-horses and quit the pretence to be human and their own unqualified self ( who the hell needs validation anyway..particularly for being a monumental prick?)..we are who we are and are entitled to expect that we are accepted as the who we are without scorn or derision..that only applies if I like you btw..

I specifically only copied and pasted that which is so longwinded and vague I wanted a translation
which might be more effective, for more than just the person writing it, if it included clarity and brevity.
Wot? = What do you mean?

Disclaimer: The following reply has information in it and unambiguous language to reflect the ideas contained in the information (and that the intended audience is primarily admin/mods). If you aren't in the habit of reading information and ideas expressed in language specific to understanding them, don't bother reading this post, ...you probably won't understand it, so before you post "gee whizz, that had lotsa words", understand at least that; the appropriate response to belaboring the obvious is: "Well d'uh, sparky..." and realize that disrespect is also earned.

Mod Zombie wrote:Rule 1)Privacy
Do not post sensitive information: i.e. Phone numbers and home addresses.

Also known as "Doc Dropping" or "Dropped Docs", this is also somewhat related to "dropping" any kind of information concerning a person that they themselves have not publicly posted on a particular site. What sets an internet community apart from an off-line one is that; all who participate set their own level of anonymity, breaching this specific expectation of privacy should be dealt with by the most extreme and permanent measures.

Mod Zombie wrote:Rule 2) Conduct
No insults or slanderous libel. Be nice to each other. We reserve the right to edit abusive insults out of your posts. Do not post any content about another user that could be considered untrue, slanderous libel or defamation of character.

This one should be a "no-brainer", as it seems simple on the surface, ... grammar and syntax are all that's needed to identify a personal insult or libel, ...towards a "person" ...and differentiate a personal insult from a comment, however acerbic, ...directed towards a comment and not a person. --> this is not always observed when posts are "reported for insults", when there are (by grammatical definition) none.

While some users may not be able to tell the difference, it is a "must" that site facilitators be able to do so and also be able to explain their actions in the terms of this rule already explicit. It should be both unambiguous in intent and enforcement so to serve as a public mandate between the site and its users.

This is a "black/white" proposition... but only if the "could be considered" part is understood by how the English language functions and not by subjective perception of intent, regardless of local vernacular.

Mod Zombie wrote:Rule 3)Trolling
No trouble making, people who persistently try to cause arguments by means of trolling will be contacted by a moderator.

To have a "rule" concerning "trolling" on a site that specifically excludes "trolling" from being something "undesirable" and any rules regarding it as "silly"; seems to me to be quite the "mixed message".

This one makes no sense if one understands what "trolling" means (this actually has its origins from USENET and already has a definition), and what "arguments" are; in the idiom of forum discussion/debate.

"Trouble making" is also pretty ambiguous (trouble for who?),

Consider that "trolling" has a meaning in the "internet" context, what sets it apart from just being provocative is; whether or not the post relates to the topic and whether or not it disrupts the topic, it's also easily recognized by its pattern and "cause-effect" and whether it's benign or malicious in regards to disrupting the site, forum, thread. This is another "black/white" proposition... As this site has no stated intention of keeping threads "on-topic", the word "trolling" is not really the right word, is it?

Any admin or moderator of an internet discussion group or forum should know this following FAQ like the back of their hand...

http://faqs.cs.uu.nl/na-dir/net-abuse-f ... l-faq.html

Even having just a cursory familiarity with ^^^^^ allows one to make a clear distinction between trolling and a valid argument/comment ("argument" as defined by dialectic context).

If this site wants to have its own definition of what "trolling" is and means, then by all means define it (as it is a verb, it is very much definable), so we all have some idea of how we can justify putting forth time and effort in composing a comment or reply, AND; ...make its enforcement consistent and accountable to this definition (since the commonly accepted definition is definitely not being used) for both the forum users and the forum's facilitators.

ItsMargo wrote:I actually think a wrinkle to the problem *might* be how we are allowed to go off topic. That means a thread can get derailed fairly quickly.
But I wouldn't want it to go to a rigid extreme where chatting wasn't allowed at all; those off the cuff remarks are too funny to lose...

This ^^^ is actually the purpose behind "on-topic/off-topic" rules on any forum, no forum facilitator wants to take the personality and banter away from thread contributions, the idea isn't to sanitize post content, it's to establish a priority FOR content, that's all, ...style and substance over mere inane pandering and empty attention whoring.

ItsMargo wrote:Perhaps a workable compromise might be: a part of each post MUST be on topic.

There are problems with this though in that; those less skilled with language don't know how to accomplish this (even though it ain't rocket science) also, those too lazy to compose anything other than mere lip service to being on-topic tend to set the bar for it, there is also a minority of the community whose depth of contribution only extends to mindless pandering and empty attention whoring who have no existing defined boundaries here.

One solution to this is to let the OP decide the intent of the thread from the start, so that those who wish to indulge in meaningful discussion/mindless banter can do so and those incapable or too lazy to be bothered with meaningful can just avoid these threads and vice-versa, those who get no thrill from mindless banter can avoid those threads, those who indulge in both can do so with the knowledge that they can post accordingly with a certainty that they efforts are valid. Everybody wins.

There are already ways to identify thread OPs, see:


Make it clear what they're for = problem solved proactively.

The means already exist to solve this one, the only hurdle is making an effort to provide clear and concise definition/implementation.

Mod Zombie wrote:...are rules that are pretty clear to me.

Il n'est point de liberté sans contraintes.

Anybody with a technical writing/SMEbackground finds them intensely irritating (trust me).

For those who don't understand what technical writing or SME means:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_writing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject_Matter_Expert

See especially:

"Good technical writing clarifies technical jargon; that is, it presents useful information that is clear and easy to understand for the intended audience. Poor technical writing may increase confusion by creating unnecessary technical jargon, or failing to explain unavoidable technical terms that reader would not be expected to be familiar with."

There are a few contradictions within the rules and their enforcement that seem easily resolved, I have tried (with no success yet) to get some clarification but have so far had no success. Being that I've been involved with online communities for over 15 years and am quite familiar with what things mean in regards to commonly accepted definitions, ...some actions regarding my own posts (deletions/edits by the site), have only been explained to me that-> they were edited or deleted because "someone didn't like them", as many of these deleted posts have been on-topic and contained no personal insults, I can only assume that they were deleted because they weren't comprehended (without any accountability for "reporting"/"enforcing" whatsoever in regards to the posted rules).

Having ill-defined rules/enforcement is (IMO), ...worse than having no rules at all. If I wanted that kind of noise, I would just post here:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.troll/topics?gvc=2

Mod Zombie wrote:But where is it broken?

Ambiguity and lack of accountability...

There is no consistency. Those who are accountable to their word (and tend to put more effort and thought into posting) will stop posting and leave, those who have less than ethical agendas and/or prefer to post with only the minimum of thought and effort will stay, people accustomed to the former won't bother with the site at all after a cursory glance at its content, (check site analytics for "bounce" to see how this works).

While not a big problem with such a small site, if higher traffic is desired (and the ad revenue that relies on it) or expected? ...well, ...the problem should be obvious.

What's the point of posting at all if a posts validity has nothing to do with content/intent, but rather the whims and misconceptions of those who may or may not be able to distinguish between a valid critique of a comment and a personal attack or trolling?

Defining enforcement of rules as being only (and this hasn't been consistent either) dependent upon the reporting of a post by someone who didn't like it (whether or not it contains a personal attack or a libelous comment- see "mod pets"), is just a cop-out in regards to both poster and moderator accountability, ...on the surface it implies that defining both the posting rules and their enforcement is somehow unnecessary, ...just an accountability cop-out nevertheless. A further and very valid critique is that this is the same model that Markus bases his automated efforts on in the last 4 years, the one that wrecked POF forums, ...think about it.

If moderation is explicitly NOT proactive and only reactive (which, while this has been a stated process, has not been consistent either), ...then self-moderation of posting itself, by definition cannot be done within any kind of available description of "valid" when there isn't any. While this may not be an issue for those who are only here for the trolling (a minority), it is for those who tend to put effort into posting when/where it's appropriate.

This choice is not up to the users to make, it's up to those who facilitate the site, ...point finale:

I guess you have to ask yourself (admin and mods), what do you want, a thriving and diverse forum that people will want to join for more than just idle distraction, or an insular venue for 20 or so people who are already familiar with each others thoughts, opinions and stories to hang out and chat when they're bored?

If you're preference is the latter, ...don't change a thing, if it's the former, -> explain exactly what you want (this forum to be) to someone with skills (preferably with a background or even passing understanding of: SME, ontological and/or technical writing protocols) to put it into unambiguous language and (simple and well defined) terms so that there's no excuses/deflection. This can be done without changing what you want this forum to reflect.

….and learn the value of proactive, preemptive problem-solving (where appropriate) and that all rules and the enforcement of them hinge on coming from an "everybody wins" proposition, it's ...that simple.