Sometimes I forget how lucky we are...
I've just had a post deleted from the Eglu forum - for suggesting that it might not be a bad idea to accidentally drown a rat whilst washing it. (someone had a rat eat a chicken through a hole under the chicken's house & they were then discussing poison & other traps).
It was only my second post on there & the mod (who was pleasant enough) said there would be complaints!
A bit heavy handed, I thought. Ho-hum, obviously not the place for me!
Stay with us here Ollie, you'll be safer ;D
There just is not another forum like this one it is truly unique.
Dan the man is amazing he lets us police ourselves, which i think we do very well, very adult, only on the odd occasion does he have to step in which for the size of this forum is A mazinnnnng!!. ;D :D ;D
It was like being back at school - where I also resented any rules that I perceived to be stoopid. I don't expect everyone to agree with me (could you imagine!), but you need room for slightly more "out there" views in any healthy discussion.
If everyone had the same views it follows that there would be no discussion ;) ;) ;)
OllieC since you have history of inappropriate posts here. I would say you where at fault and if the post was as you describe, it was clearly inappropriate. Reminds me of a post on another message board where a poster described with pictures the proper way to butchering both a deer and a turtle. That post elicited 40 post from mad vegetarians.
Ollec you need to learn to show commonsense and hold some more colorful bits back because people will get offended.
I'll do that, thank you for the advice.
Sorry, can't help myself... I'm still chuckling at the idea of me "having a history of inappropriate posts"... I'm sorry, I have to point out that I have accumulated 1,558 posts on here and have never yet been censored!! But you knew that already.
Oh dear..Ollie, you are a bad lad.. ten lashes with a wet noodle.
Rosebud is very right, this is the only forum I stay with.. I try others but rarely stay more than a couple of weeks, apart from the odd poster who gets a bit too personal this one is just perfect. I guess there will always be one.
Dan does an excellent job.
XX Jeannine
Well you will stay on please after you've moved.
well said, jeannine, I don't bother with other forums, some are moderated by overbearing people..this one is not. ;D
The Beeb seems to be another serial offender. I have to come out here and admit to being an Archers fan, the messageboard there took ages to accept my posts, and as it is a fast moving subject, (?!!) by the time the comments were posted, the moment had passed.
We are soooo lucky here, thumbs up to Dan!
;)
Quote from: katynewbie on October 21, 2008, 16:12:54
The Beeb seems to be another serial offender. I have to come out here and admit to being an Archers fan, the messageboard there took ages to accept my posts, and as it is a fast moving subject, (?!!) by the time the comments were posted, the moment had passed.
We are soooo lucky here, thumbs up to Dan!
;)
I can imagine... You comment on how Jack appears to be getting a bit forgetful, and by the time it's up there he's looking at nursing homes!!
Ollie,
of course i dont know for sure but
could it be that the fora described have a product associated with them
so eglu and the beeb if they are seen to upset people think they will be in trouble?
here is so much better :)
lbb
I asked the mod if his heavy handed modding was due to the site having a commercial interest & he said absolutely not... and also explained that it wasn't heavy handed.. I just said something along the lines that I think it's absurd that you can poison a rat slowly & painfully, but it's illegal to drown one in a couple of minutes... I suspect that some mods in this world (Definitely not Dan, of course) do it for a bit of power.
well in that case i'd just stay here,
i cant see why the non meat eaters would object more to a drowned rat than a poisened one?
oh Ollie your not proposing i should eat it are you?
why is it illegal to drown them? has it always been so?
lbb
I don't mind archers myself, hmmm :P nice warm peachy flavour. ;D ;D ;D
That's nothing. I've recently had a post deleted from John Harrisons Beijing allotments forum because I had the audacity to criticize a student teachers appalling spelling. On that forum posts are routinely deleted or drastically altered by Mods simply because they disagree with a comment.
I got banned from a forum once because my wife and myself joined and we had the same IP address, and the owner of the forum did not want more than one person using the same IP address (what a pile of s**t).
Quote from: Eristic on October 21, 2008, 20:03:11
That's nothing. I've recently had a post deleted from John Harrisons Beijing allotments forum because I had the audacity to criticize a student teachers appalling spelling. On that forum posts are routinely deleted or drastically altered by Mods simply because they disagree with a comment.
I hope you didn't comment on lack of apostrophes. ;D ;D ;D
G x
To be fair, I think that if someone has set up a forum and takes the time and expense to run it then it is up to them to decide on the rules. If they do a bad job then people won't use it and it'll be their own fault that the forum is a failure. However, sometimes having zero tolerance moderation is a good thing - not every group of people, or every subject, attracts the sort of predominantly level headed crowd that we find here!
For example, I used to use a forum where minor upsets could suddenly erupt into quite nasty flame wars (complete with the obligatory death threats, referals to legal action, attempts to hack the forum, and stalking other users around the net). When a zero tolerance policy was put in place the whole thing calmed down, a few of the more, erm, "deranged" users left, but many more new users were attracted because they suddenly felt much safer there.
So my view is that I don't tend to criticise anyone for the way that they run a public forum: it's their forum so let them get on with it. But if I don't like it I'll just leave and find somewhere better. But it's not just the moderators - for every Little Hitler you find running a forum you also find a Mr Angry who is determined to argue against every forum rule or admin decision on principle, even if they don't know what the principle is! (Not that I'm accusing anyone here of being either of these things).
Having said all that, it does sound a little odd that they should sanction a user just for making a comment about drowning a rat ::) ;D
It wasn't quite as simple as that was it Eristic? The post in question was a first post from a student teacher wanting advice on a project she was undertaking. Instead of advice, she was just attacked by the first few posters, including Eristic about her spelling and grammar. It really was an appalling disgrace the way she was attacked, not politely, but downright rudely. There were many posts that tried to help and some that criticized the rude posts, including my own. In their wisdom, which I fully agreed with, the site admin deleted the whole post and started it again with just the OP. So along with many others, my post was deleted for no fault my own. The part I found funny was that every single poster that criticized the OP's spelling and grammar had at least one grammatical error in their own post.
Robbo.
It could be that the Eglu forum has been beset by huge rows between vegetarians and carnivores, or that some other related spats have flared up, and that the moderator knows from experience what will spark people up... it's amazing some of the things that can become hot topics. I know someone who posts on angling forums, and has told me about death threats between posters! Angling!
The BBC boards, as I understand it, have premod as default for all new posters - that means your posts have to wait to go through the moderation queue before they appear, until you've posted a certain number. That's partly to stop banned users instantly re-registering and continuing their attacks and tirades uninterrupted. If the queues are long then the wait can be long too, but it's not because they don't like you... :)
The BBC are legally responsible, as the 'publisher', for every comment that appears on their boards. Every since the notorious Mumsnet case - http://www.mumsnet.com/lw/state.html - most high profile forums are now more careful, and they have to be, if they want to stay out of trouble... so I can hardly blame them for monitoring the board content closely.
*premod = premoderation, where posts are checked before going live, as opposed to postmoderation, where they are checked after they go live. Or reactive moderation, where they are only seen by moderators if somebody complains about them. I guess that's what we have here?
QuoteThe part I found funny was that every single poster that criticized the OP's spelling and grammar had at least one grammatical error in their own post.
Yes, but all of them were deliberate p
iss takes. The original post was so badly written that it was totally incomprehensible hence all the ensuing comments. That poster was simply looking for a free lunch and had nothing to contribute to the forum and would never return once we had done the project for her.
That forum has a long history of Mods altering or deleting posts because they simply disagreed with the comment and at its worst Mods were moderating and deleting posts by other Mods. In fact it ended up in the situation that only Mods were posting. Anyway, water under the bridge as they say.
I am well known for speaking my mind and I call a spade a spade, but I am never rude. That student needed a good wake up kick to the rear end and unless she wakes up quickly to her situation, she will be kicked harder and more publicly than anything she took in that forum.
Finally, in this forum I believe that there is some odd rule that each post must contain at least one typo so that later posters can rite wot I right. :P
It is in my opinion ,very pretentious to criticise peoples spelling and grammar.
Who cares .?
You might severely knock someone's self confidence.
It is up to them how they spell.
Stop pontificating about what a good speller you are. :)
Quote from: betula on October 22, 2008, 19:26:42
It is in my opinion ,very pretentious to criticise peoples spelling and grammar.
Who cares .?
You might severely knock someone's self confidence.
It is up to them how they spell.
Stop pontificating about what a good speller you are. :)
I agree, but I also have a problem if someone's post is so badly written that I can't read it! It doesn't take much effot to hit the spell button!
Prolix prosser Ollie? LOL
I agree that some moderators on some sites, get their peaked cap and bit of authority that it goes to their head, because 'there's nowt in there to stop it'. They start to get dictatorial, and like Ollie says, in so many words, it goes against the grain. ;D I've had to take the hook out of the roof of my mouth on many occasions.
There's a couple of sites I find particularly claustrophobic because of the moderators and their censorship.
I love this site, and know that I've tested Dan's patience in the past, but I'm still here. I admit to getting stroppy occasionally (well sometimes), but I've never been shown the red card. ;D
valmarg
P.S. I would never criticise anyone for their spelling or grammar. That's not what this site is about. It is communication with like minded souls. I might have a bit of difficulty, now and again, but I can usually get the gist of the message.
valmarg
Quote from: betula on October 22, 2008, 19:26:42
It is up to them how they spell.
I wouldn't go that far, Betula. I think that if there was a complete free for all with regards to spelling most of us would soon lose patience. That said, I would think very hard before criticising someone's spelling or grammar but I have had to ask what a poster means on more than one occasion.
G x
My god - mods modding each other? Hehe!
I know someone who works as a BBC mod (which is why I know a bit about how it works) - and to be fair to them, they have no power themselves whatsoever. They just implement the BBC rules, and anything that needs further dealing with gets passed onto hosts. Mods aren't allowed to edit, alter posts, allow anything that's against the rules, or remove anything that isn't, or to post on the boards. So in their case there's no peaked-cap syndrome, they just implement the rules and that's it. They get an awful lot of flak for stuff that's outside their control, like the pre-moderation quarantine period...
Amateur boards though, anything goes, and obnoxious moderation can certainly drive you away - especially if it's done with a certain tone... who wants to be lectured and chivvied?
As for criticising people's spelling - I think it's mean, and pointless - unless someone iz ritiNg n TXtspeek & u karnt und3rZtnD it! LoLz! ;D
I think someone planning to become a teacher is a special case. One of a parent's worst nightmares is discovering their child has an incompetent teacher. If a would-be teacher uses bad grammar and spelling in a post, it is reasonable to enquire whether they are sure that their career path is the right one. For their own sake, in the hope that they will not waste part of their lives by failing to qualify, not just for the sake of the poor children who might be burdened by their incompetence if they do get through. Too many poor teachers managed to qualify during recent generations and, once in, they were extremely difficult to remove.
PS I would leave a speling mistake in but the system keeps underlining them in red :)
But we should also take context into account. If I post on here then I just whack out the message that I want to send - the spelling, grammar and syntax can get a bit wayward. If, on the other hand, I'm writing something for work then I write in a more academic style and make d**n sure that the spelling, grammar and syntax is all double checked. This isn't work. This is a, hopefully, nicely relaxed forum and so the way that I communicate on it is also more relaxed. Perhaps the person in question, and I didn't see the post referred to, is perfectly capable of using English correctly when the need arises?
Indeed, when I mark the work of first year undergrads the grammar is truly appalling. By the time that they are in the third year and getting toward graduation it has improved 100%. Not because they were too stupid to do it right in the first place but just because they weren't used to scrupulously checking their work before handing it in. Thus, I might suggest that even if the person in question is not writing correctly now, there is no reason why she should not be perfect by the end of her course.
Glaad to hearit :)
Well, when I was at uni studying Physics the profs would go mental if you wasted their time with crappy grammar or spelling. The odd mistake was fine but you made the effort if you wanted them to bother reading it properly. And that was mostly sums!
Alas, since my day (and possibly that of a number on here) the skill set of the average sixth form leaver seems to have changed a little: as new subjects and new ways of approaching learning come to the fore others are pushed to the back. It seems that the three Rs are not as strong in the young these days as they once were, although informed oral debate does appear stronger.