This Forum is a Crock

[Dartagan Shepherd]

---

Scylla Rhiadra wrote:

 

If we think to regulate printing, thereby to rectify manners, we must regulate all recreations and pastimes, all that is delightful to man.

No music must be heard, no song be set or sung, but what is grave and Doric. There must be licensing of dancers, that no gesture, motion, or deportment be taught our youth, but what by their allowance shall be thought honest; for such Plato was provided of. It will ask more than the work of twenty licensers to examine all the lutes, the violins, and the guitars in every house; they must not be suffered to prattle as they do, but must be licensed what they may say. And who shall silence all the airs and madrigals that whisper softness in chambers?

 

[...]

 

I fear yet this iron yoke of outward conformity hath left a slavish print upon our necks; the ghost of a linen decency yet haunts us. 

                                                                                                  John Milton,

The Areopagitica

(1644)

 Let the music be heard, Lexie.  All of it.

---

Difficult unless you can make that really fun. I want a randomized insult button ... "You Sir/Madam, are a lewdster".

Of course the insults should be contributed by users as well.

 

 

[Mickey Vandeverre]

it was a Funny, Ishtara.

 

[Venus Petrov]

Without a 'decision-maker' from LL attending, I fear nothing will come of it.  Best to raise it when Lexie or her management can attend.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Fair enough, Mickey.

Tone is one of the major problems here, I think. Many people seem to find irony (and in this case, that might include me) almost impossible to grasp.

Most of the threads I've had pulled employed irony extensively, most often as an overarching framework. I suppose it could simply be that some of the mods here are utterly tone-deaf, but there is a sort of Newspeakish aspect to it: words on this forum aren't permitted to be multivalent, or have both ironic and "serious" significations. We must, apparently, at all times speak in utter seriousness, and employ only denotation rather than connotation.

Like Ishy's example of the "Simple English Wikipedia," it's about an impoverishment of the language, and a de facto limitation of what we can or cannot say that has nothing to do with propriety or "PG" ratings.

[Knowl Paine]

I agree.

(didn't want to bring up how meeting attendance and timing is a small problem)

[Mickey Vandeverre]

my tone was fine in that thread.

I cleaned it up to "play the game."

 

[Lexie Linden]

---

Pep wrote:

@Lexie: we don't have questions about how the Guidelines themselves are being applied.

 

Pep (we are questioning the way in which the Moderation Team appear to be acting upon unwritten codes of conduct that have not been published and regarding which posters have not been informed of the specifics of transgressions.)

---

I will be updating the guidelines or creating some other type public notice for clarity as soon as possible.  

 

 

 

 

[Mickey Vandeverre]

This is a copy of the feedback and questions that are sitting in another thread.  beginning with your quote in that thread:

"I think it is fine to discuss how we can make communication better here on the forums.  I do see your point and maybe we can be more lenient on pulling whole threads.  We will work on this.  Thanks for the feedback!"

 

this is my feedback expressed more clearly:

I am not receiving notices that posts are being pulled, and saw comments from others in another thread that they are not receiving them either.

has this changed?  or is that a glitch in the notification system concerning just a few individuals.  if the latter....how shall we report this.

with notification....we are sometimes able to go directly back to the thread in a timely fashion and try to determine what happened.  we can also rephrase our thoughts if we were responding directly to someone, rather than leave them hanging with no response.  I find this particular aspect crucial in the merchants forum where some of those discussions may or may not impact marketplace features.

someone mentioned in another thread that we may contact a moderator and ask why a particular post was removed.  is this true?  do you encourage this...or is it frowned upon.  and how do we know which moderator to contact if we were not sent a notification as to who removed it.

if we feel as though our thoughts are continually being tagged in an abusive style fashion, with no clear reason as to which guideline they did not adhere to....what would be the process to address that.  I do not think that contacting an individual with an IM will solve it, but rather make it worse. 

In order to limit the above...simply knowing whether a moderator pulled the thought immediately without a flag from another customer...that would nip speculation of abuse in the bud.  a simple statement on notification saying "the moderator has determined this post unacceptable"  or "this post has been flagged, and the moderator determines this post unacceptable"....like that.

I believe that everyone should have the right to request that their thread be removed if they are uncomfortable with the outcome or if they have a change of heart on information provided.  Others will have a different opinion.  if you believe that a poster should have the right to that request.....then perhaps a tag that says "removed by moderator" or "removed by OP request"  would distinguish.  Although that sets the OP up for possible harassment by others...it might eliminate confusion or extensive discussion on "why" an entire thread was pulled, and might possibly reduce the frustration levels.

 

thank you.

eta: also - trying to contact a moderator now with a question...and am not clear on how to do that.  I think that my private messaging system has always been turned off.  if that is enabled...will an option appear?

-------------------------------------------------

 

Those questions went unanswered while you answered questions in another thread...that "assumed" wrongly what I was actually asking.  You answered his questions....that were not even addressing correctly what I was asking with all the info.

I made a new thread with the correct info....as it was implied that I derail threads.  His thread was wrapped up...it did not have the specifics from the horse's mouth.  I chose not to "derail" it....and made my own thread with the specifics accurately.

I don't have access to the original wording.  It went something like this:

I am no longer receiving emails that a post has been pulled, as I did in the past.

My email is current and proper...as you just sent me a renewal notice for premium membership yesterday, and as I receive marketplace notices and IMs from inworld hourly.

(adding here - and I am receiving post notices from this thread)

I asked if your mode of communication on that has changed....and I figured out how to reactivate PMs....and yes, received a PM on a thread removal...so I have it under control now.

Venus clarified some points on what may or may not get pulled now and what we may or may not get notification on.

I communicated with Venus and ignored the Yahoo.

Then The Yahoo started pulling a hissy fit....so I addressed him politely to get him out of the thread.

I told him that I would prefer to ask the question myself, with all the details spelled out correctly....and he continued to badger.

I was repeatedly polite to him.

Then he became UNGLUED.

I flagged his Unglued posts.

And this morning the entire thread was gone.

[Darrius Gothly]

---

Mickey Vandeverre wrote:

[..]

Those questions went unanswered while you answered questions in another thread...that "assumed" wrongly what I was actually asking.  You answered his questions....that were not even addressing correctly what I was asking with all the info.

I made a new thread with the correct info....as it was implied that I derail threads.  His thread was wrapped up...it did not have the specifics from the horse's mouth.  I chose not to "derail" it....and made my own thread with the specifics accurately.

[..]

---

Time line here. First you say that Lexie was answering questions in my thread while ignoring your questions. Then in the next paragraph you state that my thread was wrapped up .. meaning finished and wasn't receiving any more answers.

So which was it? Was she playing favorites by ignoring you and answering me .. or was she done replying to me when you chose to start another thread?

[Scylla Rhiadra]

I've received notification from Lexie that one of my posts here was accidentally removed, and invited to repost it.

First, thank you Lexie.

And here is the content of the removed post, reposted:

____________________

I think we need to toss the misapprehension that all threads and posts that are pulled have been RICed. I don't, of course, have any actual data to back this up, but I am pretty sure that much of what is disappearing is being pulled on the judgement of the moderators themselves.

If so, that is very sad, because it means that standards are being imposed from the top down, rather than being determined by the forum community itself.



[Mickey Vandeverre]

I have put up with this particular person's repeated badgering and rantings for over a year now....as have others.

Rarely have I flagged posts over the years.

I will start flagging now in order to play the game.

By responding over and over again to people who abuse the system....and ignoring others' questions....it sends a message.

 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Mickey, I have no difficulty believing that you haven't in the past flagged posts.

Please don't start doing so now in order to "play the game."

That contributes nothing but turning this into a wide open gunfight, made the worse by the fact that you are shooting blindly: you have no way of knowing who may or may not be RICing your threads and posts.

[Mickey Vandeverre]

well...not clear on what the options are.

was told in another thread basically not to question the moderators, not to derail....and to play the game.

tried that...and it ended up worse.

there is a third option?

eta:

I have not flagged any posts in this thread....and will not.  I tried that yesterday, simply to see if it would eliminate a problem.  evidently it does not.

[Darrius Gothly]

It's okay Scylla .. she can RIC my posts all she wants. Considering that I haven't and won't RIC hers, it just illustrates how totally unglued I am. LOL

[Scylla Rhiadra]

---

Mickey Vandeverre wrote:

well...not clear on what the options are.

was told in another thread basically not to question the moderators, not to derail....and to play the game.

tried that...and it ended up worse.

there is a third option?

---

If I knew of another solution, I'd have advocated it long ago.

But given the limited range of options, you might instead choose one that at least does no harm? RICing, particularly when the system is so opaque that there is no way of knowing if  you are targeting an actual malefactor or not, just adds to the carnage and confusion.

[Mickey Vandeverre]

If your thread gets removed for a derail....

then the flagging might offset that.

but it did not in this case.

just found that removal of the thread to be a blatant back-tracking on what they said they would work on.  I mean right on the same day!

if they want to appear not to play favorites....that blew it.

if that thread were still here today...

would have kept mouth shut and continued to play the game as they wish.

maybe.

deal is....if you can't even get by with playing their game....

the other option is leaving it alone entirely.

but personally need to have access to merchants forum...so the same voices that control in general area...do not control outcomes there.

I don't care too much for your voice some days (as you well know)....but they take that away...they take away all the others, and they just ditched the virtual world for what it is....and replaced it with a Pollyanna Farmville that Breeds on Fake BS.  might as well just plug the whole thing into Facebook and Google+ and get it over with.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

---

Mickey Vandeverre wrote:

 

I don't care too much for your voice some days (as you well know)....but they take that away...they take away all the others, and they just ditched the virtual world for what it is....and replaced it with a Pollyanna Farmville that Breeds on Fake BS.  might as well just plug the whole thing into Facebook and Google+ and get it over with.

---

 

I don't disagree -- in fact, my Milton quote above says pretty much the same thing (minus the FB and Google+ reference, of course).

[Scylla Rhiadra]

---

Pep wrote:

A third option, as I have occasionally done in the past, is to write in a sufficiently complex style using sophisticated language, that neither those who I am berating nor those supposed to be moderating according to the Guidelines, are capable of grasping the extent to which the Guidelines may or may not have been broached.

 

Pep (It rarely worked;

my antagonists assumed they had been insulted on the basis of hyperemotional irrational reactions, and the mods agreed with them out of ignorance and faineance, offering supposed rationales for action that bore no resemblance to the transgressions which may or may not have taken place.

)

---

And therein lies the rub. This is why irony doesn't "work" here either: there seems to be a tendency (based on concern for the "sensitivities" of those who might not be capable of understanding irony, perhaps?) to take the "safe" course, and simply delete where there is any question.

This is why an ironic "attack" on furries that was actually satirizing those who attacked that community could be removed for "intolerance," and a light-hearted attempt to defuse an ongoing flame war humorously employing McCarthyism to suggest that the fight was overblown drama could be deleted as "contributing" to the flaming.

[Peewee Musytari]

---

Mickey Vandeverre wrote:

I'm not happy about that thread with a simple question being pulled this morning.

All I wanted to know was why I was not getting email notifications for pulled posts.

There was nothing wrong with the phrasing of the question.

I followed every single freakin' rule.

 

---

Isn`t this your other thread? http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Forums-Feedback/Post-Removal-notifications-are-not-being-received-in-email/m-p/1060737/message-uid/1060737#U1060737

[Mickey Vandeverre]

yep, that's it.

[Raul Rehnquist]

---

Pep wrote:

@Lexie: we don't have questions about how the Guidelines themselves are being applied.

 

Pep (we are questioning the way in which the Moderation Team appear to be acting upon unwritten codes of conduct that have not been published and regarding which posters have not been informed of the specifics of transgressions.)

---

Hypocrisy ? Much ?

Raul (horselaughs.)

Seems I remember seeing this written some place. http://pserendipitydaniels.blogspot.com/2011/08/hypocrisy-much.html#comments

[Raul Rehnquist]

---

Pep wrote:

@Raul: Call us when you get it.

 

Pep (won't hold his breath.)

 

PS It wasn't me that called you an idiot.

---

The Godwin's law equivalent of Captain Obvious. I know the comments portion were not your statements. With both of those two, I just consider the source.