"Hosting a thread" vs. "Censorship"

[brain]

Dear Community,

a thread had been going wrong in many peoples eyes during the last days (the "Female VJs?" thread in the "meeting point". After some call for a moderator primebase3 took responsibility and deleted a row of posts. In the same thread there now started a discussion about what a host should do (deleting or not). Lets move the discussion over here, if there is a need to talk about these things.

Please all stay cool because this section of the page has no host yet :) and all have in mind that the hosts give their time and nerves to all of us for free and deserve a hug for that anyway :)

??

i'll post some thoughts later, no time now.

[brain]

i think its not easy for a host to decide: when is the point to intervene. every host has his personal style and draws the line according to his views. this is ok because if a host does not do his job well the community will cry out for a change. not much of a chance for a host who's just interested in powerplay getting a hard-one when "ereasing" others... anyway, the hosts are some of us and even have the right to make mistakes like everyone else. remember, we all still have to learn to keep this forum working for a long run...

when a host feels it's time to take action (or people call for it), maybe a few "rules" (when to to what) help. the community may discuss that here, but still the hosts decide of course.

here's just some thoughts and suggestions of mine.

1.) some posts may require immidiate action (ereasing of posts): stuff like "i heard VJ xyz deals drugs on the venues he plays and he's an asshole anyway". i don't consider this censorship when the post is
- potentially dangerours to people
- pure personal attack without any value to the thread
- (more here, we'll have to discuss)

in this case the post should be deleted ASAP and the poster be asked via PM to stay calm, be polite or whatever.


2.) unfortunately most times its not that simple and a post for example causes trouble, gets angry replies, things get out of hand. but maybe that post had some points to it and it seems to make sense NOT to erease the initial and ALL of the related posts. when intervening, i sugggest the host should make a FIRST NOTE and remind people to stick to the rules and cool down (prime's great at that :) ). i think this first "host post" should be labelled CLEARLY as coming from the host ( "NOTE FROM THE FORUM HOST: ..." or the like). if the people still fight unfair and things get no better, the host may erease posts made AFTER the first host note and posting a SECOND NOTE that he has done so and why.



using this procedure later visitors of the thread clearly see there was something going wrong, and someone cared. i think this is better than just deleting posts without any notes, because no notes leave the feeling of a bit of amnesia (WAS there someting going on?). People may learn from seeing the first posts that caused trouble AND the reaction.

After all i think the deleting of posts should only be used in the most severe of cases - but this is a question of definition (where to draw the line). Sometimes it may be better to leave even "nasty", "sexist", "offtopic" or whatwever posts, so the community sees what others think, even if its embarassing. at least it helps people to build an opinion on the poster and the members get less of a feeling of being patronized or someone censoring. remember: if something HAS been posted is HAS been read and already may have caused damage or hurt someone, even if it's deleted afterwards. if the post vanishes without a trace, noone may respond without leaving later visitors puzzled ("whats he/she so upset about?").

It's the line of intervention that may be discussed, leaving the hosts with a better feeling what sort of posts the community wants to stay and which to go.

brain

(question: do you hosts discuss your actions with each other? do you exchange experiences and report actions?)

[PilotX]

Possibly off topic stuff should be moved to a new thread (if possible), with an initial post from the moderator pointing to the original thread that it sprung from?

Tom
Syzygy Visuals

[eXhale]

It would already much help if people didn't went off-topic all the time. If there is something you want to say but which is not related to the initial question/post, then by all means take the extra step of creating a new thread, eventually putting a link to the thread which made you post this.

[BrainStove]

Fair enough and totally agree with you Brain.

In fact that?s exactly what I said, but my post never was Off Topic since I was witness of all the situation from the start on that original thread, therefore totally On Topic.

[holly]

yes.

[vjpixylight]

well I would host, but no one has asked, leaving me to believe a lack of confidence that I would be fair as a host, so...If you want something of me, just ask, or expect nothing...;)

as far as blindly taking on the power of moderator, then lets just be fair about it, no more taking sides eh...

[wellREDman]

pixy X has asked a couple of times, that anyone wanting to host a forum to let him know, and ive posted about twice trying to get ppl to do it

[vjpixylight]

Yea I was pretty much offline for the last month as I was away from home, so I guess I never saw any of those posts about it.
anyhow, I will host if Ex wants me too...No problem man..

[holly]

I think you should go ahead and PM Ex, Pixy. He may not take your offer seriously otherwise (and he may not even read this thread).

[eirenah]

Originally posted by brain
i think its not easy for a host to decide: when is the point to intervene. every host has his personal style and draws the line according to his views.

I would like to discuss not exactly about censorship, but about when the thread needs to be closed:

A)
when it's offtopic, while there's another thread that's more appropriate for that kind of discussion
(I know that in my/pixy's case there practically is no offtopics since it's General Chat, but if there's another forum that suits that discussion more then general chat, what then?)

B)
when the situation is: X asks Y something, Y answers, and host is aware that all further discussions will lead to offtopic discussion that should go somwhere else (other forum or PMs)

C)
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AND one more question:
what do you think a host of forum Y should do when someone moves his thread from forum X to forum Y because he's not very happy with X forum host censoring him without explaining why he did it and now he wants to continue discussing it somwhere else?

also, if you don't agree on A or B arguments for closing the thread, please explain why.

let the brainstorming begin : )

irena

[MoRpH]

Originally posted by eirenah

B)
when the situation is: X asks Y something, Y answers, and host is aware that all further discussions will lead to offtopic discussion that should go somwhere else (other forum or PMs)

No cause other ppl might have something valid to contribute aswell, ie other solutions etc. Threads need to be allowed to grow organically as they can lead to wonderful interesting places, guidence is necessary, hence my normal OT posts finishing with "and noe back to your regular program" to try to get keep things ontopic, its a total gardening metaphor, you need to work the thread onward and upward as who knows here it might end up, but try to keep it TOGETHER and COHERANT, if an MAJOR branches of dicussion develope snip them off and transplant them to a new thread (or gaft them to a more relevent old thread). But try to let the threads grow and develope.

AND one more question:
what do you think a host of forum Y should do when someone moves his thread from forum X to forum Y because he's not very happy with X forum host censoring him without explaining why he did it and now he wants to continue discussing it somwhere else?


Actually I thought this action was poor form and should have been taken up with the senior editors directly, via say PM, this dragging of threads around forums to escape the wrath of certain helms is a BAD example to set. If anyone has an issue with how they were treated by a forum helm (including myself :p) please bring it to the attention of the senior editors privately, not is an open slanging match in an unrelated forum. Thankyou

[holly]

Some of us don't really care about the vjf hierarchy: Senior Editor, Junior Hostess, Senior Member, First-time Poster.... There shouldn't be special exceptions for someone just because of the number of times s/he posts. If anything, a senior host/ess should know better, but everyone has his own style.

I vote for keeping the threads clear and on-topic (a few off topic posts are necessary, but once it becomes a full-blown other-discussion it needs its own home so the original thread can continue).

Please delete every thread that begins with "Hey, who moved my post?!" That's really unnecessary to any discussion. A simple notice on the original thread by the host/ess and a link to the new topic is all that's needed. Geez, it's like people think they're all Winston Churchill the way they complain about being moved around. We're all just cattle here! Moo.

[Bluelive]

Is it not possible for a moderator to filter the offtopic posts into a new thread and leave the original with a link to the branched off discussion.

[eirenah]

Originally posted by MoRpH
No cause other ppl might have something valid to contribute aswell, ie other solutions etc.

thrue. but on the other side, as you say:

Actually I thought this action was poor form and should have been taken up with the senior editors directly, via say PM, this dragging of threads around forums to escape the wrath of certain helms is a BAD example to set. If anyone has an issue with how they were treated by a forum helm (including myself :p) please bring it to the attention of the senior editors privately, not is an open slanging match in an unrelated forum. Thankyou

that's exactly what i was trying to achieve. but no sucess obviusly. :(

[MoRpH]

Originally posted by holly
Some of us don't really care about the vjf hierarchy:

Get off the high horse with the "some of us don't care" shit, I was simply trying to offer a solution, that could involve the person being treated fairly and not draging everything out on public display through non-related forums.

eire, I'm not sure what you getting @ above??? I don't see what closing a thread after 1 simple answer has to do with ppl draging complaints all over the forums. The first was a constructive thread, the 2nd was not what I think we should be doing.

Anyways I have to admit all this talk about copyright and moderation is boring the shit out of me, can't we get back to talking about INTERESTING STUFF.

[eirenah]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by MoRpH
eire, I'm not sure what you getting @ above??? I don't see what closing a thread after 1 simple answer has to do with ppl draging complaints all over the forums.

offcourse it has! it has something to do with what happened now on "why was this post removed??" - now it has NOTHING to do with why X censored Y anymore, now it's just part2 of something that should be on Legal issues, and the Flucht's problem obviusly isn't solved. Why are all this posts here on General Chat instead overthere? Just because it's General chat it doesn't mean it can be recycle bin for all who are unhappy with hosts of forums they posted on. That's what closing a thread has to do with draging complaints all over the forums. It's all one big messy forum mixed with another now.

e.

[MoRpH]

Hahaha general chat is always gonna be messy. I already gave a solution to the problem, IMHO thats how it should have been dealt with in the first place.

Gawd damn is this a VJ forum, or a forum about moderating forums, legal whiging and protecting profits.

eire I know you want some answers but everyone is gonna have their own style, do your thing, if there is a problem I'm sure ppl will say something to you (I know ppl have to me and I know it has helped :) )

[eirenah]

aaah i know, i know MoRpHie...