who should be banned?

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I must say, Keith's ban did him no good at all in my opinion. He has returned as a reprogrammed, avuncular, all round nice guy! Give me the old Aussie bile!

As for you Joe, I have wondered on many an occassion why you haven't consulted with Messers Feck It & Leg It? Must be some inner NY resolve. Having said that, I see a more mellow you coming through recently - very sad turn of events if you carry on like that

It is the internet, it is an open forum, it attracts all kinds - those who you deem to be naughty sling and the rest, observe.
 
clayne said:
How about the contributing factor of moderators just deleting posts/threads because they a: don't like what's being discussed, b: don't like what they hear? Obviously if people are making personal threats of violence towards others they should be reeled back in - but aside from that, people should have the freedom to say whatever they want to say. Responders/listeners have the equal right to listen to it or not.

What gets a lot of long time people worked up around here is moderation reaching in with the artificial hand and manipulating the ability for people to speak freely. There are countless examples of this happening here on RFF.

People will feel more comfortable/more loyal if they didn't have to worry about this. Even this discussion of banning - there's very little reason to ban people other than outright and overt problem causing. Having a differing viewpoint is not a problem. Attempting to beat everyone into submission until all views are compatible and "everyone just gets along" is a problem.
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I think this is very well said. Sometimes I feel the moderation here a little oppressive in the above ways, but it has been hard to sum up my thoughts in this regard, as you've done above. In real life, it would be akin to wading in with the baton at the first sign of any malcontents in an otherwise peaceful, valid and valuable form of public expression, if not dictating what expression is valid in the first place.

Ultimately, I think this is important, as at the end of the day, such oppressive behaviour, while succeeding in (forcefully) keeping the peace, can lead to a inevitable, slow and gradual erosion of valued posters and valued expression over time.
 
I think that somewhere here freedom with anarchy got mixed. You should not really have absolute freedom on what you post simply because:
1. This is subject to your personal point of view about what is freedom.
2. You may offend others by expressing personal points of view outside the scope of this forum.
This is there should be moderation in a really strict mean. I have seen other forums going almost moderation free and in the end being ruined as it was not possible any more to put things in place.
 
As for "How about the contributing factor of moderators just deleting posts/threads because they a: don't like what's being discussed, b: don't like what they hear?" it never happens -- unless the threads are deleted by the original posters, or the threads or posts are simply objectionable in tone.
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Are you sure about that?
 
moderator said:
Yep, we pretty much let anyone post anything smart or dumb. We could care less.

We move totally nutty, but OK threads (no racism that sort of thing) to "Off Topic." There are exceptions where a poster is just trying to start a flame war, say a thread entitled "Leica Cameras are for fools" might go, but if there is some humor it will likely end up in Off Topic.

We close threads which just simply become rotten, but mods very seldom delete threads so they cannot be read. Original posters are the main source of thread deletions. The idea that the RFF mods are closing a lot of threads is simply not true.

"Off Topic" threads do not appear on the front page. But they are there to read.

Honestly most threads which are closed are political in nature, or run amuck due to international insults of others. We don't delete hardware threads, unless there is an trolling undertone.
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Okay. Fairly sure I remember other members complaining that their own posts had gone missing in some threads, but I can't recall who's or which threads, so that previous sentence of mine holds absolutely no weight :D

I couldn't care less, anyway* ;)






*except that I obviously could, or I wouldn't have asked
 
Freedom of speech means letting those who don't agree with you have their say. There is a fine line between enforcing political correctness and banning obnoxious behavior. And that line is often in the eyes of the beholder.
 
What people have a problem with is censorship of posts that the mods simply don't agree with. Not necessarily posts which are inciting riots but valid points. I personally witnessed shadowfox' posts being deleted during a debate with back alley. That simply isn't cool at all.
 
clayne said:
What people have a problem with is censorship of posts that the mods simply don't agree with. Not necessarily posts which are inciting riots but valid points. I personally witnessed shadowfox' posts being deleted during a debate with back alley. That simply isn't cool at all.
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Thats probably one of the issues I was thinking about. And I agree, that would be a pretty, well, childish, thing to do, if true.
 
Some years ago I had experienced problems here with a strange character who was obviously obsessed with me and everything technical I could write about a particular brand of vintage German cameras (at that time those cameras were quite popular among a solid group of passionate people - things have changed a lot since). That guy was keeping not accepting obvious facts re. how a 1930's shutter was designed to work and how it had to be fixed so that it would then work well and durably. At some point he had even included something nasty re. myself in his signature, and had tracked me enough so that he then knew my actual name and location - scary.

The other side of his personality was displaying somebody very polite, very civil, quite refined and having lots of culture etc.

This was an interesting lesson about how people can behave once they are on the Internet actually.

Yet I am finding very sad to see somebody like Roger Hicks having left this place, because nothing he wrote was uninteresting. Even if I wasn't always on par with his points of views.

But he might come back - or not.

This is a living forum - things go forth and back.

I must admit that I never felt any active censorship here ; this forum matches what I expect from an international photography forum with interesting discussions about photography and how photography takes place in our various societies.
 
moderator said:
Clayne thinks it is true. But he only knows for sure which of his posts have been deleted.

The important question is do you feel posts of yours have been unfairly deleted?
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Its not really an important question, as none of my humble posts have ever been deleted. And if they had, I have a fail safe mechanism for it in any case, if I ever feel that one of my "discussions" were going down that route. Which they never have.

I see what point you're trying to make. I do. However, I feel that implying that "if it hasn't happened to you, don't worry about it" isn't really community spirited.

Lets pretend that people's posts had been deleted and not by them, then that would not only ruin the flow of a thread and make attempt to read such threads a waste of time, but also it distorts the truth.

I would be more in favour of closing a thread and leaving an audit trail up there to evidence why it was closed.

This discussion could enter a whole new territory here, but closing threads, combined with the "victim" blocking the "offending parties" posts seems a less insidious way of dealing with things.

Anyway, for the amount I post, its not relevant what I think. I'll leave this thread for the forum big hitters and view from the comfort of my well worn couch. Its only the internet, after all :D
 
Unfortunately one of the hardest choices a moderator has to make is whether or not they're a moderator first and a member second, or a member first and moderator second.

The problem with being a member first and a moderator second is that once people know your opinions and biases, every act you do as a moderator will be filtered through what people know about you as a person, whether rightly or wrongly.

The problem of being a moderator first and member second, is that people don't really get to know you, and often times you will come off as a stick in the mud "no fun allowed" type.

However I find the latter approach creates less problems than the former.

Unfortunately I have witnessed on this forum what seemed to be a moderator's personal opinions taking precedence over the job to simply moderate the forum and keep things in check. It eventually built up and came across as a "my way or the highway" attitude, which resulted in deleted posts, threats to ban members, and a closed thread. It was silly, and frankly appeared very childish and immature on the mod's part. Their actions instead of cooling the situation down and putting things back on track only caused more strife and negativity. Then of course they closed the thread after they had basically instigated bad behavior.

After that I left the forum for a year because I questioned if RFF was a community I wanted to be associated with. I'm happy to say that since I've come back I have not witnessed anything nearly so heavy handed or unpleasant from any of the mods, and that is why I've stuck around since. But just one instance of something like that can be enough to permanently sour members opinions of the forum or the staff.
 
Sparrow said:
... with respect I would suggest that a moderators' misuse or their powers could have much to do with members being banned
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I would hope that all permanent bans are discussed between mods on the moderator forum. This in my experience is generally how permanent bans are handled. It would be bad if a moderator could simply ban a member forever without first running it by other moderators to see if they agree.
 
A previous mod, now moved on, called me out over a comment I made in a thread that he completely misinterpreted and sent me a very abrupt PM. When I pointed out politely that he had read it wrong he admitted his mistake but never bothered to apologise for dragging me over the coals and making a totally untrue accusation. I was very close to bailing out of RFF over that incident.

He's gone thankfully ... and I have to say I don't miss him at all!
 
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