who should be banned?

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At the RFF we frankly don't see insulting posters as valuable. I have been running forums since before Netscape existed, and find that keeping things peaceful on hardware forums is the best policy.
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Of course. I think you may have mistaken my post for debating the need for policing/ moderation, or not, where in fact I (hope) I was pointing to the nature of that policing/ moderation.
 
Who should be banned?

Roger Hicks?
PKM-25?

Really? Why not Tom A? Raid?

Come to think of it, Stephen might be the best choice.
 
Sorry i am slow learner, i am still missing something. Is it not possible that all the people which have been Banned are still looking in and reading "lurking" or have come back in with a different name, Avatar etc.
This is the internet anything is possible or am i wrong, not all people are honest about the details the give when they sign in.
 
Oh, point taken, sorry.

I admit there is a part of me that just says post and scream at each other, but frankly I have gotten PMs, just in the last hour saying how important it is to some to have peace to discuss film or digital quietly without the distraction of the overbearing zealots.

Thanks for you clarification... calm and clear.
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Ha ha, no worries :)

EDIT: I would always hope I am pro-discussion, discussing the play/ point at hand, rather than playing the man, so to speak. As such, I hate to see a good discussion cut short due to a few troublemakers. Its a fine line balance though to get right, and I always appreciate that, thus my referee analogy earlier in the thread :)
 
You did indeed witness deletions but they were not done by a moderator.

All of those deletions you reference state "This message has been deleted by shadowfox." Members have the right to delete their own posts. Shadowfox posts a lot, in the last month his only deletion was due to being in a thread Dave L deleted.
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Hey... this is weird.
I don't delete my own posts often, if I can see the post that I deleted, I may recognize it and can clarify to those who asked, but I don't recall deleting anything recently other than a half-written post that I didn't submit.

But, I'm also a web admin, and I would trust logs first than human beings simply because computers have no ability to harbor agendas.

In any case, that is not my point. My point is, I don't even remember the said thread or topic. I disagree with Joe a couple of times but that's the thing, disagreeing with a person in a forum on a certain topic, is *not* the same as becoming one's enemy.

If we would just realize that an opinion or a topic or a discussion has a limited scope, rarely do those become big or important enough to even get us to be upset or worked up.

As for the mods, I respect all the old (not referring to age) ones. I think they are doing a fine job. Now there are a few members (some quite new) who suddenly sports "moderator" under their avatar, I don't know about these, in my mind they still have to prove themselves.

And then there are long time members who I think *absolutely* should have been moderators, but I suspect they turned down the offer.

But in the end, this is Stephen Gandy's forum, his turf, his call.
 
As an outsider - a member who mainly sits on the outside of a discussion (though I've opened my big mouth once or twice too often), it is troublesome to read of people like Roger Hicks being gone, and not understanding why. It's probably none of my business, since this is a privately owned forum, there's no "right" for anyone at any time. But still, it feels odd, like an entire bit of Internet history is simply excised out of existence. And there's a huge gaping hole of history missing here, like the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about, like going to the library and finding archived newspapers heavily censored with blocks of black ink. It's like missing history. For an Internet archivist, it must be a daunting task gaining some understanding of our culture's online history when it's being actively "managed."

I look at Roger's public discussion log and it's like 4 weeks since he last posted something, none of which appeared to be involving heated arguments or in anyway inappropriate. I suppose he left of his own accord. More power to him. I just don't understand why is all.

I can feel for the moderators, a thankless job, like being in law enforcement. But, like a former Dallas police officer once said, "A police state's not such a bad thing - if you're the police!"

~Joe
 
I am always interested in reading opinions on moderators and thread deletion. It tells me a lot about the posters who comment. To me that is valuable insight.

As to my personal opinions; I have no problems with the moderator's moderating. There may have been some action I would rather not have seen, but I am not in a position to judge them. Only the Head Bartender is. My thanks go out to the moderators.

So for my part, they can keep it up as they are doing. If some think their actions are heavy handed, it may be. But if they haven't quit, or been fired, it must be OK in the context of RFF: We agree and disagree on many things. Sometimes more forcefully than others. The moderation is part of what makes RFF what it is. I like RFF very much, as it is.
 
shadowfox said:
As for the mods, I respect all the old (not referring to age) ones. I think they are doing a fine job. Now there are a few members (some quite new) who suddenly sports "moderator" under their avatar, I don't know about these, in my mind they still have to prove themselves.
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Wholeheartedly agree.

Last week I shared some views about newbie mods, to one of the 'oldie' mods.

Mods can wreak havoc faster than the rank and file if they aren't also monitored...
 
all I know is, I have had threads closed down and/or deleted by members making inappropriate comments and to the best of my knowledge, they have never been banned or warned......and the results were that my threads were deleted or "closed".......it doesn't seem right to me......

cheers, michael

an example would be my thread that was talking about my camera going to North Korea......
 
The forum is for "us" but the moderators have to be able to run it as they see fit.

Some form of temporary ban or "moderated posting" (which some forums allow but it's a lot more work for moderators) is necessary when members get aggressive.

At some point, the moderator simply has to make a decision whether or not the positives are worth the angst of dealing with a serial aggressor (obviously there are some "one strike" offenses that warrant banning immediately). When a particularly time consuming / irritating user passes the "worthwhile" threshold, the moderator can and should be able to ban him or her without a general uprising. If this is unsettling, so be it. If members want things to operate differently, then step up and spend some time moderating and solving forum problems.

It's the internet - we all know there is plenty of friction out there, but if we don't want a flame war going on all the time in this forum, we need to let the mods have their way and run the forum with their judgment (and support them). There are plenty of places where flamers can go and practice their diatribes.

The beauty of this forum is the diversity and creativity that is shared and enjoyed. I haven't been a member as long as many of you, but the difference here is resounding and welcome.

Thanks to our moderators!
 
Bill Mattock, came, went, came, went. I don't think he and Roger ever crossed paths. Would have been an interesting thread if they did!
 
Moderation is a job you can't do right. If you're too strict it stops discussion, if you're not strict enough, things become nasty. It is a tough job. I expect that the mods discuss among themselves about the best way to handle some situations.

I would like to thank the mods. With all their faults, they seem to do a good job and this thread shows it imho. It takes guts to ask the members what they think about the moderation!
 
Although I sometimes question their decisions, I think that the mods do the best that they can with what they have to work with. It's tough being in charge and it usually doesn't win you any popularity contests.

Thanks
Joe
 
I know one of the mods personally, but of the newbie mods, I've only seen one do any moderating. (Not to say the others haven't; I just haven't seen it myself.)

The mods mentioned in the forum lists are Kim Coxon, back alley, and rover. KC hasn't posted in 2 1/2 years.

Is there an official updated list of all the mods?
 
If you let me log in as Mattocks, Hicks, etc, and let me take over their user names, I would be able to mimic them so perfectly that nobody would know they were gone.

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, then it's a duck, right?

Of course, someone once said that about Katooeys, but to each his own.

I'm not joking, if you want them back, I'll bring them back. Just like that Hologram Tupack. Maybe Apple needs a Hologram Steve Jobs.

I can be a Holographic anybody.
 
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