Concerns about moderating policies

[The Chairman]

Oh, the drama!

 

[scubadada]

The staff has spoken, yet again.

I've had this growing concern that I really don't belong here anymore. Really nice and friendly place to get one's feet wet. Brainless past that.

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/outlaws/greengrasshightides.html

@lowviz wouldn't have thought anyone remembered or appreciated the Outlaws anymore, here's to us old guys my friend

 

[lowviz]

...//... I don't let my friendship with them interfere with the mods either. DD, Dan Volkman and others I consider to be friends. ...//...

Small problem, there.

His proper name is Dan Volker.

His email is dan@sfdj.com

I can slow down if this is too fast for you...

 

[lowviz]

My bad.

Endless apologies. Just checked. He is banned. You can't talk to him.

 

[Diver0001]

I can't speak for DD and frankly it seems a little off talking about a guy who can't defend himself here, but nevertheless, I'll say this...

When I joined the board just before I got certified a few years ago, out of the hundreds of people who participate here regularly there was only one person who engaged me privately, without solicitation, to offer tips and suggestions on how to improve my diving. I thought that was cool. He didn't have to and most people don't. In fact, many would rather FIGJAM a new guy, which happened by a couple popular members as well. So I guess I'm a little partial to his ban. I can also dish out and take a little razzing and am probably a lot less sensitive than many.

So I think the better question to ask is, does his contributions to the board outweigh some of the bad blood between him and a mod. In other words, the guy is experienced and knowledgeable when it comes to diving, often points out issues that are overlooked, calls out unsafe advice, and he posts pictures and video content often that makes for a better and more engaging site. Do those contributions not outweigh the fact he and a mod don't get a long? Could a better approach be to ask these two to ignore each other?

I don't want to sound like I'm carrying the guys water, but there's a handful of people on here that if they were all banned, the site would lose some of its appeal. Several of you have posted in this thread, many of you tread the infraction line, which is probably why this is the 204th post with thousands of views and hell, he didn't even start the thread to begin with.

I'm not suggesting special treatment. Perhaps a little de-sensitizing from everyone. Everywhere I look these days someone is offended by something.

I liked him for similar reasons. I also liked that he cut against the grain. I think people who don't conform often help us make progress in our thinking.

That said, while I am not at liberty to discuss the details, I can say that while I liked him I agreed that the decision was necessary. It's just one of those things you sometimes can't avoid even if it's hard.

R..

 

[Diver0001]

Really nice and friendly place to get one's feet wet. Brainless past that.

I think you might be a little jaded. It is, in fact, our goal to make Scubaboard a friendly place to be. Pete wants it like that and he's very good at bringing across to the mods how he expects of us to try striking a balance between all of the (social) forces at work on a site like this.

One of the things he tells us often is that he likes debates to be firm. We don't try to stop people disagreeing with each other or having different points of view. If a debate is firm and issues are being debated in good faith then even if the people involved are passionate about it, it's left to run its course. Being friendly is not about trying to get all the noses pointed in the same direction. That's up to the users to work that out. Being friendly means playing the ball, not playing the man (or woman). How we say this to ourselves is that we do not moderate people's thinking (provided on-topic etc etc). Only the tone they strike with one another.

I think I know him well enough to say that it is Pete's belief that debate can be firm AND respectful. On the internet these things are often hard to bring together. For better or worse we try to bridge that gap as well as we can.

That's an important guiding principle for the mod team. Yes there is a grey area and we're confronted all the time with having to make decisions in that grey area. We make good ones, we make bad ones and we make many that probably don't change the tone of the board much one way or the other.

I guess to you we probably appear to make more bad ones than good ones. I can understand that because you are also one of the people who cuts against the grain. You're an out-of-the-box thinker, a little cynical at times, somewhat suspicious of authority and you have a higher than average tolerance for people being blunt. There lies the rub. If we were to moderate to that then we would probably alienate a lot of other users.

We try to strike some kind of balance but it's never going to appeal to everyone. Where some will always find the board too edgy and moderators indolent, others will find it too coddling and moderators far too meddling. Everyone is going to be somewhere on that scale but we can't stop doing the job because of that. I hope this helps put it in perspective a bit.

R..

 

[The Chairman]

Endless apologies. Just checked. He is banned. You can't talk to him.

I'm not sure if this is alcohol induced or not: I have all of his digits, including his phone number. Yeah, I got the last name wrong. I'm over 60 and already growing senile.

 

[The Chairman]

I think you might be a little jaded. It is, in fact, our goal to make Scubaboard a friendly place to be. Pete wants it like that and he's very good at bringing across to the mods how he expects of us to try striking a balance between all of the (social) forces at work on a site like this.

One of the things he tells us often is that he likes debates to be firm. We don't try to stop people disagreeing with each other or having different points of view. If a debate is firm and issues are being debated in good faith then even if the people involved are passionate about it, it's left to run its course. Being friendly is not about trying to get all the noses pointed in the same direction. That's up to the users to work that out. Being friendly means playing the ball, not playing the man (or woman). How we say this to ourselves is that we do not moderate people's thinking (provided on-topic etc etc). Only the tone they strike with one another.

I think I know him well enough to say that it is Pete's belief that debate can be firm AND respectful. On the internet these things are often hard to bring together. For better or worse we try to bridge that gap as well as we can.

That's an important guiding principle for the mod team. Yes there is a grey area and we're confronted all the time with having to make decisions in that grey area. We make good ones, we make bad ones and we make many that probably don't change the tone of the board much one way or the other.

I guess to you we probably appear to make more bad ones than good ones. I can understand that because you are also one of the people who cuts against the grain. You're an out-of-the-box thinker, a little cynical at times, somewhat suspicious of authority and you have a higher than average tolerance for people being blunt. There lies the rub. If we were to moderate to that then we would probably alienate a lot of other users.

We try to strike some kind of balance but it's never going to appeal to everyone. Where some will always find the board too edgy and moderators indolent, others will find it too coddling and moderators far too meddling. Everyone is going to be somewhere on that scale but we can't stop doing the job because of that. I hope this helps put it in perspective a bit.

R..

I wish I could like this a thousand times.That's a great perspective on my perspective. Thanks for the overly kind words at that.

 

[chris kippax]

I got moderated once, real quick like. My post was deleted and a poor excuse was offered. It was when scubaboards main page was hacked and mentioning it in a post was obviously embarrassing. I have attached the screen shot from the hack.

 

[Diver0001]

I got moderated once, real quick like. My post was deleted and a poor excuse was offered. It was when scubaboards main page was hacked and mentioning it in a post was obviosly embarrassing. I have attached the screen shot from the hack.

I can't speak to the reason why you were told that the post was removed but don't forget that aside from being a pleasant pass time for us, Scubaboard is a business.

I'm sure the fact that the site was hacked was very amusing but ask yourself this. If the website from the business you work for was hacked would they put it in the spot light and laugh about it or if they would remove it and get on with business?

Like I said, I don't know what you were told but to me, personally, it would seem unwise to (a) draw attention to the fact that the site is vulnerable to being hacked and (b) make it sound like a joke, therefore potentially leading others to think we find it ok.

I would have removed it. Any mod would have in order to give the site admins the time they needed to figure out how it happened and plug the hole.

R..