Free Speech and Moderation: from Filmmaker Rob Stewart dies off Alligator Reef

[Diver0001]

No I certainly won't. Hostile?? Your opinion.

Not only his opinion. You are the type of user that makes people generally want to avoid internet forums; argumentative, aggressive, self centered and offering little in the way of relevant substance, all of which with an undercurrent of anger. What actually surprises me is that you would conduct yourself online like this when some of your patients may be able to discern by your postings who you are. Perhaps they already know this about you but speaking for myself, in the interests of my career I've learned not to showcase large amounts of negative emotions and generalized frustrations with the world around me in public internet forums for the most part. It was a process, of course, but a valuable process that I would recommend to you -- or anyone who posts a lot online.

There are LOTS of other places to get info and not too sure I will hang in here.

I can only speak for myself but I would be fine with you leaving if you decided to do so. You will, of course, not be forced to leave by the mods unless you consistently violate the TOS. You have freedom of speech on this forum to a degree. Freedom of speech is, as you have noticed, not unlimited here. There are forums for that but it takes a VERY thick skin to even try participating there. If you feel more comfortable with that then by all means, please go there. For the same reason that most sports are played with a referee, most internet forums are played with a moderator. There are rules of conduct. There has to be or it will degenerate into bickering. If you don't like the rules then that's fine. Nobody is forcing you to participate.

I should make perfectly clear that it is not a requirement for participation on this site that the moderators like you. Many sites are moderated like that. This one is not. Scubaboard is moderated with as even of a hand as moderators can manage. The size of the community helps too. There are well over 200,000 users here and moderators don't personally know everyone. Everyone is welcome to participate and moderation is usually focused on the TONE of the discussion, not the content. Off topic posts are often removed in order to maintain as much value as possible to the threads that are running but moderators have strict policy of not "thought policing" individual users' posts.

Given the popularity of the site I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that this style appeals to more people than it repulses. However, in a community this size you can never make everyone happy all of the time. Users do get frustrated and leave. That's sometimes very regrettable but it's also unavoidable. Moderators do maintain a dialogue behind closed doors to learn from mistakes (and yes, moderators do makes mistakes like anyone else)... on the whole I would say that most users find the moderation necessary and they find it fair..... If you don't, that's fine. You are welcome to your opinion.

Unfortunately in exactly the way some people go to a hockey game and spend more time yelling at the referee than they spend watching the hockey, we have users on the board -- like you -- who do the same. That's fine too. you have a right to do that. However, just like the person at the hockey game who screams at the referee the whole time (a) the hockey doesn't get any better because of it and (b) people around you start to get tired of it. That's your choice. If you don't stop then moderators won't make you stop unless it's a TOS violation but you can be sure that some of it will be filtered out in order to keep threads as on topic as can be expected.

The way you formulate your posts it would appear as if you believe that your presence on Scubaboard is so valuable that moderators should start running the forum the way you think it should be run. I think it's clear to everyone except you that you are mistaken. So all in all you are welcome to stay and you are welcome to leave if you do not believe this site is what you are looking for. You can choose to live with the manner in which this site is moderated or you can choose to leave. Staying and incessantly moaning about it, however, is illogical and does nobody, including yourself, any favors.

R..

 

[The Chairman]

It was very time consuming to read through 800 plus posts to get at the real info so made a plea to preserve the whole thread.

I guess this is a case where no good deed should go unpunished! You seem to be complaining about a problem you're contributing to. Did your "plea" add to the discussion about Rob Stewart? No and by splitting this off, we shaved at least 72 posts (7+ pages) of you complaining about us removing the very off topic crap you're now complaining about from that very thread. It's ironic, doncha think? You don't have to take my 'word' for it either: it's right here for everyone to read.

ScubaBoard has evolved over the years and except in the learning forums, our tack is be reactive rather than proactive. That means we rely on our users clicking on the "Report" button at the bottom of every post. This results in a forum that is based more on user desires rather than the mod's. Your post was reported as being off topic and hostile. I agreed it was definitely off topic, but didn't think the hostility rose to the level of moderation. So, your thread hijack got moved, making sure that the next guy doesn't have to wade through 8+ pages that have nothing to do with the OP.

Perhaps that is a business opportunity to compete!!

Many have tried. The problem is, most forums start out thinking we won't be like "them" and become exclusive rather than inclusive. They've tried to weed out people just like you to keep the signal to noise ratio as high as possible. This tactic simply doesn't work. The West Coasties came up with the Dive Matrix, but I don't know if that's still around or not. I believe the real problem was that they wanted everyone to think and dive alike. If you didn't dive like them, then you weren't really welcome. You were treated like a cyber stroke as it were. Here, we only have two things you're not allowed to promote: learning to dive without an instructor and learning to dive overhead without an instructor. Other than that, be nice, stay on topic and the users won't report you. If you don't have the patience to read opinions that differ from your own, then we might not be for you. We certainly encourage diversity.

 

[Diver0001]

I should mention one other thing that has been on my mind since all this started.

Doc Ben played the "censorship" card.

I've been a member of this forum since 2002, IIRC (15 years or so) and a moderator for some part of that, so I get to see a lot of the **** that most users -- fortunately -- never have to see.

Since I joined here every single time I've ever seen someone play the censorship card it wasn't because they were fighting for their own right to free speech... Because we allow that..... it was because they wanted to muzzle opinions that they didn't agree with, and they wanted to make it look like moderators were at fault.

I personally think that this is the doctor's tack here too.

R..

 

[Wookie]

Even more, and what I find most interesting, is that I feel now, as I did the day Rob died, is that the people on that boat deserve the fairest shake that can get, and have tried my hardest to make sure that those folks aren't tried in Internet court before they get their time in a court of law. Feelings about the Folks named in the Stewart family suit run high. Everyone deserves to have their story told. I have been more than upfront about where my information comes from, and that if I've been told not to reveal sources, I won't. Then some unknown comes along and, without really slogging through the background, sets out to challenge everything here. Without knowing or trusting Doc Ben’s agenda, and I'm sure he has one, I'm content to treat him as the Internet stalker he appears to be.

 

[rossh]

Since I joined here every single time I've ever seen someone play the censorship card it wasn't because they were fighting for their own right to free speech... Because we allow that..... it was because they wanted to muzzle opinions that they didn't agree with, and they wanted to make it look like moderators were at fault.

R..

This thread is about SB and its Free speech and moderation. The mods and staff here, have been self congratulating themselves on how good they are at moderation and free speech, for several pages now. My own experience here at times, runs contrary to that.

I have been censored here. My free speech has been deleted and restricted, even when not in breach of the ToS, numerous times.


Some examples: At one time, I was giving a list of prohibited words I was not allowed to say or imply... only to watch others use them freely. I have been advised of extra rules and limits that apply directly to me only... I have been given temporary bans for reasons that don't add up, just to silence my point of view. Other times I have been responding to existing posts, both on and off topic, only to be falsely blamed for an off topic posting, and then temporary banned.

And all I every talk about is decompression theory, models and diving practices - math, physics, engineering and science - not people. I get blocked here, because some people can't handle / want to bury, a different point of view....


Sorry guys, but it does seem the back room chatter you engage in, clearly does steer the direction and outcome of thread conversations. From my perspective, you do not successfully act in an impartial manner all the time, and the fair decision process that is it place, seems to get overridden by the people doing the front end moderation.

Perhaps the most conflicting aspect, is when a mod gets to both participate in the thread and reads the back room chatter at the same time. When a mod is impassioned to force a point of view across to the exclusion of all else, the double access empowers the mod to push every button to the limit, until he finally succeeds in getting a one sided conversation through warnings and threats issued to non-agreeable participants.

Another fault in the mod participating in thread situation, is that they still have mod access to user post edits and deletes in the thread, giving them far too much insight as a participant.


*******

The quote above says "we allow that (free speech)". Clearly that's not always the case.
The quote also talks of "... it was because they wanted to muzzle opinions that they didn't agree with..." which is what SB has done to me..... not the other way around.

Thanks for listening.
.

 

[Dan]

How many off-topic threads have branched off the original one, 3-4 threads? Imagine wading through those posts, had they been one giant thread with shotgun blast discussions to every directions.

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

One of the main weaknesses of this SB is to force us to sift through page by page to get at real info (according to me of course).

Please suggest a better alternative.

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

And all I every talk about is decompression theory, models and diving practices - math, physics, engineering and science - not people. I get blocked here, because some people can't handle / want to bury, a different point of view....

For me it's just that I simply believe in Simons's science, more than yours.

 

[Diver0001]

This thread is about SB and its Free speech and moderation. The mods and staff here, have been self congratulating themselves on how good they are at moderation and free speech, for several pages now. My own experience here at times, runs contrary to that.

I have been censored here. My free speech has been deleted and restricted, even when not in breach of the ToS, numerous times.


Some examples: At one time, I was giving a list of prohibited words I was not allowed to say or imply... only to watch others use them freely. I have been advised of extra rules and limits that apply directly to me only... I have been given temporary bans for reasons that don't add up, just to silence my point of view. Other times I have been responding to existing posts, both on and off topic, only to be falsely blamed for an off topic posting, and then temporary banned.

And all I every talk about is decompression theory, models and diving practices - math, physics, engineering and science - not people. I get blocked here, because some people can't handle / want to bury, a different point of view....


Sorry guys, but it does seem the back room chatter you engage in, clearly does steer the direction and outcome of thread conversations. From my perspective, you do not successfully act in an impartial manner all the time, and the fair decision process that is it place, seems to get overridden by the people doing the front end moderation.

Perhaps the most conflicting aspect, is when a mod gets to both participate in the thread and reads the back room chatter at the same time. When a mod is impassioned to force a point of view across to the exclusion of all else, the double access empowers the mod to push every button to the limit, until he finally succeeds in getting a one sided conversation through warnings and threats issued to non-agreeable participants.

*******

The quote above says "we allow that (free speech)". Clearly that's not always the case.
The quote also talks of "... it was because they wanted to muzzle opinions that they didn't agree with..." which is what SB has done to me..... not the other way around.

Thanks for listening.
.

Hi Ross,

Thank you for joining this thread.

As everyone can clearly see, Ross is still here. I think this is a perfect example of what I was talking about above. Moderators did not ban him for his opinions although it was clear through a number of discussions that very few people (read nobody) agreed with him, including several moderators, a few of whom are hard-core technical divers and one of whom is a world renowned decompression scientist who was intimately involved in the research to which Ross, for personal and commercial reasons, objects.

Those discussions were heated, they were controversial and Ross was given every reasonable opportunity to make his case in the best spirit of debate. His form of debate is what is commonly known as a POV (point of view) warrior. Many websites have to deal with such users, particularly Wikipedia, who has an actual policy for dealing with it... which SB does not. Moderators were in a position of having to develop a policy "in the trenches" as it were, due to this case.

A POV warrior, for those who are not aware, is a user who fixates on a stand point and cannot be brought to any other insights regardless of whatever is brought in, whether it be scientific data (as in this case), logic or whatever. You see it often in politics, you see it in religion, you see it in cases of race relations or a number of phobias, like the currently relevant "Islamophobia".... where convictions are more important to the participants than facts, and for some odd reason we were seeing it here on Scubaboard in relation to decompression theory. It was a bit of surprise to have a user who appeared to be so fixated on rejecting widely accepted and peer reviewed scientific research..... nevertheless, it happened.

I can not address the specific claims Ross makes about moderation. I was there in the background but I cannot recall "lists of acceptable words" or anything of that nature. In his debating style he often made fabrications of this nature so I would seriously need to go to the moderation archives to verify it. I do not, however, deny it. Moderators were trying very hard to find a way to deal with a staunch POV warrior and I do recall a robust discussion about how much leeway this user deserved. It is possible that someone gave him advice that he is now relaying as having been a directive..... more than possible... likely.

In the end, Ross was given a wide latitude for "free speech". He was not banned, he was not put in a penalty box by moderators and he was allowed to go horn to horn with his arch nemesis, Doctor Simon Mitchell (both a medical doctor AND a Ph.D), who, as I mentioned above is a world renowned decompression scientist... and who happens to also be a moderator on Scubaboard. Ross, on the other hand may or may not have a degree of some kind but is clearly a reasonably competent computer programmer. This was the setting in which the debate took place.

Ross is still here. He is still permitted and as far as I am concerned encouraged to speak his mind about his opinions of moderation on the board, as he is doing here. I understand his frustration about losing the debates in which he was involved but nobody restricted his say regarding the issues about which he is so passionate and if the discussion comes up again, he will be allowed to have his say again..... despite not a single person on the mod-squad, including Doctor Simon Mitchell thinking that he is even remotely right about it.

So thank you, Ross. Your example serves to demonstrate the quality of moderation on this site, if you ask me. You have been and always will be able to speak your mind and we are still on speaking terms despite the fact that we do not see eye to eye.... To me this seems like a vindication of everything I said above.

R..

 

[The Chairman]

I have to weigh in here as well... Ross debates by hurling epithets rather than using logic or facts. Name calling isn't allowed, not even if you're RossH. We've been asked by Dr. Mitchell to not delete his attacks, as they show who RossH is, but we can't accommodate that request. In a twist of irony, Dr. Mitchell's nonaggressive responses to RossH endeared him to staff to the point that we invited him to be a moderator.

Yes, RossH is a textbook case of a POV warrior. He brings up his ideology in threads that have nothing to do with it and since they are OT, we remove them. However, much of his moderation comes under name calling and trolling.