RE: Locked threads

[David Benton]

Crazy Nip ,I agree with most of what you say . As to how "heavy handed " a moderator is ,well we could argue that till the cows come home , its really our personal opinion .

One point in your post ,

" but I will give him credit because he at least seemed to treat everyone fairly and evenly " .

I think this is probably the most important quality a moderator can have .
I always felt free to post a post that disagreed with GBN , so long as it was on topic etc . I would like to see that continue in the amtrak forum , which is potentially the most contentious forum .

that is the challenge for all us Moderators , too not use our power to force those that disagree with us to edit thier posts , or delete them outright .

[UPRR engineer]

UPRR Engineer- I agree with all your points except Number 4. We generally do not appreciate threads that degrade into blatant name-calling. If you wake up one morning and find a thread has fourteen flame posts and is not going anywhere, then that would be a good candidate to lock up for a while (and delete the flame posts).

-otto-

Whats your take Otto on some of my famous topics i've started in the Amtrak forum? Something good to read, discuss, debate, which leads to good posts from both sides of the fence. They usually need supervision, but you can only talk about Amtrak routes, congress, Bush, diner cars, yadda, yadda.... Bring up something else thats gonna need tending to, John and Wig take the easy way out, throw a lock and or remove it.

If i open the door again in the future, bring up something i would enjoy talking about relating to Amtrak. The Mods should know i expect the mob to return with heated responses. A lock and a "Were not gonna go there" Well why not? Everyone else here probably wants to chime in...

Did you "Observe" my latest Amtrak topic over the weekend there Otto. It wasnt that bad was it? That Amtrak employee from Colorado poked a bit of fun at me, i wouldnt have called it flaming by any means. He just put the ball back in my court. Hardly a reason for a lock.

Otto do the new mods at Amtrak know there gonna have to put some time in to "Clean" things up? No one has seen any of it yet. Thats a busy place, and on occasion i would like to bring things up that are gonna need to supervised.

[Mike Roque]

I'd like to know just how the new Amtrak forum "moderators" were selected.

I wasn't in on the appointment. Otto?

I never heard that there was an opening for a moderator(s). Did any of you? Was there even an announcement that people could apply for the moderator position? I never saw it. Did any of you?

In short, why wasn't the moderator position for the Amtrak Forum open to all members? Is that a special forum that requires 'internal' appointment?

Have we witnessed the "old boy network" in action here?

Something stinks here.

Although I wasn't in on this particular appointment, we are not obligated to offer everyone a shot here. I won't speak for Otto, but obviously he handled the appointment as he though appropriate.

I'm not directing this at you, F3A, but...

At the end of the day, what's the big deal? I don't even know who the admins and moderators are for many of the other forums that I visit. Most of the problems we have is with people breaking basic forum rules, both explicitly written and unwritten etiquette standards. If more people would post with respect and humility, we'd have less need for moderators, and their selection would be less contentious and political. The moderators are necessary because people push the limits of the rules.

It's just a discussion forum people.

[Mike Roque]

F3A--This site isn't a democracy. The owners pay for the site and get to pick the moderators. Sometimes they publicly ask for volunteers, sometimes not.

Joe, with regard specifically to the Amtrak Forum, if you look up two posts previously, Otto stated that moderators were selected by "volunteers". If that were the case, then why was GBN's postition at least not advertised?

F3A, did you even read what JoeG said here?

[Mike Roque]

Thanks for that clarification. It's news to me that donations are possible. Maybe a more prominent link could be put up for those of us who'd like to donate.....

Well, I don't like to shake the pan too often, but perhaps we'll run a banner at some point. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Mike Roque]

I've edited or deleted far more of my own posts than everyone else's combined.

I'm not accusing you, Ken, but this bears repeating for all moderators: Moderators should never edit people's posts. If it's absolutely necessary for clarity, mods can edit topic titles, but posts should never be edited. Either delete the message, lock the topic, or let it stand.

[GOLDEN-ARM]

I, for one, am still waiting to buy some RR.NET swag, and use PAYPAL as my payment method. Get that up and running, and I'll be the first one to use it, for a purchase. Regards

[Mike Roque]

this inconsistency is one of the reasons alot of people have a sour taste in their mouths about this website

the inconsistency in moderation rubs some people the wrong way

FWIW, Nip, if I could run this website (including moderating every forum) full time and make a decent wage doing it, I would.

[Mike Roque]

I, for one, am still waiting to buy some RR.NET swag, and use PAYPAL as my payment method. Get that up and running, and I'll be the first one to use it, for a purchase. Regards

You can visit our store at http://www.cafepress.com/railroadnet , but I don't think you can pay with paypal...that's beyond our control. I like Paypal too.

[GOLDEN-ARM]

Been there, several times, Mike. Want a couple of shirts, but I "trust" PAYPAL, for those payments. Maybe one day.................

I "had" to edit one Mike. Someone was asking if anyone knew person so-and-so. Someone else posted his name, address and home phone number, as a response. I "edited" the address, and phone number, sent it to the intended recipient, in a PM, and noted the editing, in the very next response, to the querry. The topic was interesting, in itself, and deleting it was probably not the way, to go. Do you think this was acceptable, given the circumstances? Regards <LV>

[Ken V]

... this bears repeating for all moderators: Moderators should never edit people's posts. If it's absolutely necessary for clarity, mods can edit topic titles, but posts should never be edited. Either delete the message, lock the topic, or let it stand.

I support this statement in principle. I would never change someone else's words. There have been one or two occasions where I had removed part of a post that used inappropriate language and wasn't relevent to the topic at hand or railroads in general. I also placed a note at the end of the post saying that I had done that. This way, instead of deleting the whole thing, the remainder of the original message was retained. I hope that this sort of thing isn't out of line.

I "had" to edit one Mike. Someone was asking if anyone knew person so-and-so. Someone else posted his name, address and home phone number, as a response. I "edited" the address, and phone number, sent it to the intended recipient, in a PM, and noted the editing, in the very next response, to the querry. The topic was interesting, in itself, and deleting it was probably not the way, to go. Do you think this was acceptable, given the circumstances? Regards <LV>

I think it was reasonable, but my opinion isn't as important as that of the members of your forums.

[Mike Roque]

I generally prefer to simple delete the message to avoid problem, but if you feel you must edit in an appropriate situation such as your personal information example, leaving a notice as to what and why is certainly a good thing to do.

What I wish we could do is have posts "disabled" if a moderator feels the need to hide it, but not delete it.

The phpBB people are coming out with a totally new version soon, and it has a LOT of features we've been wanting for a while. I'm interested to see what improvements they have made in this area.

[David Benton]

Mike , is it possible to have a note at the bottom of a post , to say it has been edited by the moderator ?as it is if the poster edits it himself . i don't like been edited , other than bad lanquage and spelling mistakes , but i would at least like everyone to know my post has been edited . same with deleted posts , i think there should be a note to say that a post has been deleted .

[Moderator's Note] You can just insert a note into the post you edit like this. Usually mods make the font a bit smaller to distinguish it without competing with the message. -webmaster

[Otto Vondrak]

The only time I ever "edit" posts is when someone copy-pastes an entire copyrighted article from another source. I delete all but the first two paragraphs, then insert this note:

[snip- you cannot copy paste entire article to this site. Please reference the original link- ov]

Or something to that effect.

The appointment of the new Amtrak moderator was largely conducted by GBN, with my help overseeing the process. GBN is much closer to the folks who use that forum on a regular basis, and I trust his judgement completely. Several folks were offered the job- including those that oppose GBN's past forum policies- and they all declined. F3A, did you want the job?

UPRR Engineer- I didn't see or notice the topics you mention. If GBN thought they were appropriate, he would have left them. Same with the current forum moderators. They will let you know when something strays.

Again, here's something I want to stress: Every forum has it's own community standards. What flies in one forum may be offensive in another. What is offensive in one forum is a good joke in another. And so on. It's up to the forum moderators to establish community stadards with ttheir forum. If one is established, but it doesn't pass the smell test from me or Mike, one of us will often step in- either privately behind the scenes or simply state the issue in the forum.

RAILROAD.NET is an open book. Ask UPRR Engineer, he is one of three people in the history of this site who took me up on the offer to call me direct if they ever wanted to discuss their serious issues with this site.

I hope I've helped address some of the issues that were raised here. I'm currently out of town (and out of time zone) and feel like a zombie.

-otto-

[umtrr-author]

I don't think it can be overstated that moderating is a thankless job. I tried it for a while and have largely given it up. With the exception of one small very focused Yahoogroup that gets about two posts a month, I don't go there any more.

I am mostly a reader here, not a writer, and so I can't really comment on specific boards-- I just have not been here long enough. But I do know in general that it takes a lot of patience to take on the moderator's job. There are rare ego-centric powermad exceptions, but there are elsewhere in life as well.

Disclaimer: I know both Mike and Otto personally from my affiliation with the RIT Train Show and respect both of them.