Fair enough, I completely missed that distinction in your last paragraph.
Regarding your fear that, for instance, lgtbq conversations would be banned under the guise of not wanting to upset the social conservatives, my fear is that anything remotely controversial will be banned, simply because the potential for controversy could upset advertisers/mods/somebody.
Regardless of whether an lgtbq conversation is leaning left or right, it’s bound to upset a certain group of people, and if you’re trying to drive eyeballs and product sales you generally want calm seas and not to be associated with any one side in fear of alienating the other side and approximately half your potential customer base. As Jordan said “conservatives buy sneakers too”.
The community guidelines certainly lean towards that kind of moderation being the future here. Which would be a real shame, in my opinion.
Not rude at all. Why are mods afraid to discus things in public? Because they are afraid of the public, that the public will support the member. In private, they feel powerful and strong, in charge. In public, not so much. Insecure leadership is never good.
Eric-what you describe is in many ways the essence of SlowTwitch and discussions on Forums. Discussions that may go around and around in circles, therein often lies the beauty of the discussions and the topics themselves. I think we all realise that you want to keep the website open and continuing, but there is certainly not a general feeling that we have been heard and that things are being looked at. Significant trust was lost with the way the changes were rolled out, ie if you wanted to truly listen to us then you would have engaged with us prior to the changes rather than rolled them out as they were. It is not one of those management situations where it is best to just rip the bandaid off first and then let the pieces fall as they may. This is a community at heart, a community who almost certainly feel strongly that they have been an integral part of growing and developing this community just as Dan and Ryan have help grow and evolve it as well. We need you, we have not been made to really feel that you need us. Using things like “timeout” just to silence someone because they may be going in circles you will find is not actually useful, you will find in the shorter to longer term it does far more damage to the membership.
You ‘going in circles’ is almost always because you’re right, and trying lots of different avenues to get the point across. I know that (have experienced it), most of the other forum members know that, and respect the hell out of you for it, because it’s a lesson in polite discourse, not backing down, while being open to reason. Woe betide a poor argument vs Yeeper.
Personalities doing their thing is a huge factor of the LR attraction. Homogenising that will suck the life of the place.
We haven’t heard much from the mods/admins in a day or so. Maybe it’s just the weekend, or maybe they’re taking a hard look at the feedback they’ve gotten so far and making some decisions on how to proceed.
Specifically on Yeeper’s timeout, I suspect a particular mod who has a little bit thinner skin than we’re used to, was probably just a bit overwhelmed by the volume of negative feedback they got from the ongoing and impending changes. Being told again and again by numerous irritated people that you’re wrong can fray your nerves, especially if you’re personally invested in the decisions everyone is decrying. Customer service is hard…
On the one hand, “going around in circles” can be a sign of someone who just won’t let something go, despite having been told something in no uncertain terms. On the other hand, going around in circles can be a sign that you’re not communicating with that person effectively somehow, and you need to find a new tact. If you’re going to moderate a forum, you probably need to err towards the latter. It sounds like one of the mods interpreted it as the former.
If you’re the forum user, you probably need to be able to read the situation and realize when you’re getting on the mod teams’ last nerve, and take a step back. There’s such a thing as healthy pushback, but also such a thing as antagonizing and making yourself an easy target for when the hammer comes down. Got to find the balance. Posting just that one extra thread with, “I’m just saying,…” can make it sound like you’re just trying to get in the last word, or just trying to rub the other person’s nose in their wrongness. Probably not number one on the list of conflict resolution tactics.
(I’m not blaming Yeeper for this, just laying out some of the considerations on an online forum where context, sarcasm, facial and body language cues, etc can all easily be missing and lead to misinterpretation)
@slowguy as usual very well stated and nice breakdown.
I will be the first one to admit I can perseverate and there are certain topics or types of discussion where I find myself more drawn towards than others.
With that being said, I will also say that I do ask a lot of questions because I prioritize reasoning.
The mod who put me in time out claimed I was essentially irritating them and crapping on them or other posters. He also told me I needed to slow down. My issue with this is that was the ONLY thing he said to me before taking action against me.
In my reply to his post I specifically and politely told him I didn’t agree or understand and I asked him to point out where I crossed his line. This is pretty much necessary in order for me to understand the reasoning, be reflective, and make any changes to heed his advice.
I didn’t get a reply. I wasn’t given any warning other than slow down and I have no idea what that means. Much like the terms it is very vague.
Even upon private messeging I was refused details. So HOW am I supposed to understand how to not “poke” them? How am I to understand their preferred interaction and dialogue?
To say nothing of the fact that I was accused of irritating them but I barely had any direct interaction with them. I was involved in the discussion with other posters and quite politely. Many of us were saying the same exact things and some more bluntly than I.
The mod who took issue with me and banned me was “liking” Lastlap’s inflammatory posts. So rather than respond or clarify he was supporting a poster who was sarcastically putting the rest of us down for even raising concerns. Those were his contributions to the thread.
I would like to continue to see the LR flourish and if it requires some changes then so be it. I will continue to be a polite as I can be and have been for well over a decade.
And I will even continue to agree that my discussion style can be relentless for some but so what? It’s open threads on a public forum. And if I also need to change that to be welcomed here then I will make that choice but I certainly won’t accept any blame for that BEFORE I was aware that it was no longer acceptable…as it has been for the 12 years I’ve been here.
I’m not a mind-reader and I don’t appreciate being treated like a child.
Thanks, Kiki. Really do appreciate your words! From a very young age I like to get invovled in conversations and my mom always said I could “argue the ears off a brass monkey.” But yes, I try to be very respectful, and not reactionary or knee-jerk in my discussions.
I value the conversations of members here and have learned A LOT in my relentless discussions. In addition to learning countless things here I have had my mind changed on politics, abortion, LGBTQ, etc. And I admit when I am wrong. I try to be a constructive member of the forum that has done much for me.
I think maybe you can see this as an opportunity to recalibrate. From my reading of the terms there is nothing to say you can’t be persistent or repetitive. The fact the Yeeper kept at it may have been due to a lack of satisfactory response from the moderators etc. Frankly I did not read all of the many comments related top the breakup. Obviously you are both financially and emotionally invested in the forum. I frankly think the current plan as I see it being revealed in the triathalon forum may not be good. I have concerns with some of what you guys have sent into certain categories… Maybe you might need to rename some or improve the description for clarity, ie racing is participation in racing not all things racing… since no discussions of races are included. I have not had time to try and find the platypus thread… or aero sensors thread… the only good thing is that the new forum format shows where things are happening in a single page under topics. But I assume that is the basic format of this forum software. It works similar to other fora I am familiar with.
All that to say you may need to recalibrate why you give a time out and who gets banned…There are a number of posts that I might suggest are not genuine, yeeper is not one of them.
i get that you’re in the LR, and don’t spend time in the main forum. but this? sheesh. it’s aggravating when when someone thinks he’s on the “loosing” side of something. but what you did? THAT is a banning offense!
dam (keeping it family friendly),I blame a poor triathlon education…or the fact I have never done one of those tri thingies… but to ban me is the right thing for such an egregious offense.
