Author: Eelco de Groot
Date: 08:58:17 01/26/00
Go up one level in this thread
On January 26, 2000 at 02:45:16, Bruce Moreland wrote: >I would like to know how the moderator candidates think they might like to >handle the following situations. > >1) Someone nobody has ever heard of creates an obscene post with an obscene >title, and no other content. I would delete the post as soon as possible and undertake steps to ban the account. I would do my very best to get the other moderators to take a look at the post to get their approval to ban the account but if that would not be possible on short notice and more such messages started appearing I would ask Steve to use his own judgement in such an emergency. > >2) Someone complains via moderator email that another member has sent them an >email calling them a "prick". I would reply that it is not up to the moderators to intervene in such an issue. If it was clear that posts by one or both parties were somehow involved depending on the case a moderator might write an e-mail on a personal basis to the offender. I would restrict moderator actions to what happens on the board. But maybe something that you write on a personal basis might prevent the situation getting out of hand on the board and so might prevent having to intervene in more drastic ways as a moderator. But that would depend very much on the situation. > >3) Someone writes a short post announcing that they've written a new chess >program, explains that you can get it for $30, and includes a URL to their web >site. I would take a look at the site to see if that corresponds with the post in question. If it does I see no further reason to take action. I would not regard that as excessive commercial posting. > >4) Someone consistently posts abusive messages, and it seems to be impossible to >get them to stop doing this. The person should be banned of course. We would try to explain our actions and our views on his behaviour to the person but if reasoning did not seem to have an effect I see no reason to postpone a ban. In this particular case I don't see the point of a suspension because there is nothing that would suggest that the person's postings could improve. But he could always take up the issue with a new team of moderators and try to convince them that he has bettered his ways. > >5) Someone complains to you via moderator email about a post that contains a lot >of content but includes the line, "at this point black blundered with 29. ... >hxg5 and got the shit kicked out of it." I would ask the poster if he would use different words in future posts because these words can be offending to people. If the post had not already developed into a thread I would ask him or her if he would not reprase it and have the original post removed. Probably there already would be replies, maybe referring to the offending line and in that case I don't see it as serious enough to remove the post. If the thread developed into a row and not a serious discussion that would be reason to delete the whole thread. > >I would like to ask a couple of other questions: > >1) On a scale of one to ten, where one is super-tolerant, and ten is completely >intolerant, how tolerant are you of off-topic posts? Trying to quatify tolerance with a single number seems pretty meaningless to me, Bruce. But let me say again that I think that some off topic posting should be possible and that it serves a clear function too because it is nececessary for us to cooperate as humans, not as slave-processors. But if it appears that off topic posting become a goal by itself to somebody and especially if they are not balanced by on topic posts the moderators should take action. I would rate myself at around 3 then for tolerance, where 1 would be super-tolerant but I think such a number in itself does not say very much. > >2) Are you capable of getting rid of someone who seems to be here to cause >trouble? That is one of the primary responsibilities for a moderator. If you think you can not do that you should not be a moderator. If a person just seems to want to cause trouble I see no point in letting them stay. They can always take up their case with new moderators by e-mail if they think they have a defendable case. But then it would be necessary for the new team to look at the relevant material again if they thought there was a defendable case. So I hope there is a file with at least the relevant moderator e-mail available. After that it would also mean looking through quite a few posts in the archives again to get a better understanding of the situation. At least that's what I would want to do if I found that the case should be looked at again. The rest of the jurisdiction is not entirely clear to me. Steve Schwartz is owner of the board so I think he or rather ICD Chess should at least have a veto in the matter whether it is suspending an account, site-locking an ISP or reinstating somebody. Suspending an account or site-locking somebody, also reinstating somebody is not something moderators can do by themselves anyway. Please correct me if I am getting things wrong, Bruce because you know much more about the process than we can. We are only guests here, not paying a dime for our membership so it is only logical that the final decision in these matters is always to Steve and ICD. Coming back to the Chris Whittington issue, KarinsDad asked for our opinion on that so I thought I had better say something about that too. I'll try to be a bit diplomatic. At this moment I must say that I find the present situation not something that could be put right by any moderator action. There are I understand old grievances, misunderstandings probably on both sides too but only the persons in question can try to put that behind themselves. There are enough lines of communication open for that I hope and I am actually very glad that parties at least are talking to one another every now and then. Even if that maybe is not going to change much. I'm not inclined to change back Chris' original password. If the current moderators would have thought that the situation called for that they would have done that because I know they have discussed, deliberated and corresponded quite a lot about the whole situation. So if I were moderator I would want to defer to their judgement here. I think the new moderators can only hope to play something of a further mediating role when the need arises because they can look at things afresh and have not yet become involved so much. To Chris if he is reading this I would like to belatedly wish him a happy new year because I didn't get around to doing that yet but I had planned to, I'm glad that he had fun setting up his own forum and I hope that one day he knows who his real friends are there. Thorsten is your friend, Chris. You had better know that well.
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.