Thanks for the feedback. To preface, I've been dealing with various online forums for at least 10 years now and my aim is often to head trouble off at the pass, so to speak. Some comments:
but in all seriousness how do you draw the line? I don't want to get in to a 1st amendment debate, but one persons "nonsense" could be another's peotry.
I tend to tune out when First Amendment stuff gets thrown into these conversations because this isn't a free public government subsidized forum. We're privately run and privately funded. Regardless, the question is a good one, where do you draw the line? Everyone has a different line and one's history is going to dictate what goes and stays. In the end, any line will be at least partially arbitrary based on perceived history, personal beliefs, and a moderator's mood. In the end we try to maintain a collection of thoughts that are pertinent and enjoyable for as many people as we can.
But in this short while, I've seen a lot of people get thrown into the bad boy box. Some justified and some I've been scratching my head over. I respect the notion that you don't like to delete posts and in some instances you'll wait a bit.
This is seasonal. Before November I don't think anyone was int he box for 10 months. This is also from past experience
here - this place has some bad history with people going stir crazy. There was some nasty stuff in the past and it always seems to flare up in Nov/Dec. By mid-winter, a subset of people have tuned out and another subset have accepted the weather. Things are better then.
As long as its not truly offensive, imoral, graphic or pornographic, let the flames fly. I understand not pissing off sponsors, or truly off color stuff, but we don't need "style points police." If thats the case call him/her out, in the forum, don't yank it and stermly tell them to 'get creative.'
The "creativity" end to yesterday's disagreement was me letting it go. My message was: Don't be a troll. The message was missed and I decided not to pursue it. I've met Luke at the picnic and he's been around a while. But I've warned him not to troll in the past and the warnings have not been heeded as I hoped. I'm getting tired of it and he fully well knows it. If he chooses to walk that line when he knows damn well this is the case, then he can't say he wasn't fully warned.
I'm also trying to be 100% transparent in all of this. I don't dislike Luke.
By his own admission he comes off worse on the message board than in person. If someone posts something that gets them boxed, I don't hold it against them. I literally didn't even remember SixSeven was in the box last year. I know people do and say off things, myself included. That doesn't mean they're off. They just had an off moment, hour, day, week, etc.
I'm not trying to bash you, but I feel lately that things are becoming a little "over moderated," and I commend you for your efforts, and time spent. I just think things need to be let go a little more.
Like I said, it's seasonal. Once Jan 1 rolls around people will start to calm down and the board will be back to an empty box for a while. At least I hope. I understand that there's no solution that will make everyone happy. All you can do is split the middle and try to create an experience that will make the
most people happy on
most of the days. I commend you on the well thought out post, and certainly would not put you on any watch list* or anything like that. I encourage people to chime in and say what they think.
*you're going down
