A ScubaBoard Staff Message...
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Split Thread - Title changes
- Thread starter Cave Diver
- Start date
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I want to apologize to the readers of this thread. I did not authorize the name change although since it was moved without my permission and I was too busy and pissed off over the move to address it last night I was going to respond to the request to change the name after I got home later. The title should be "How accidents happen on training dives". The location is not important. What is important is that divers not ready for open water should not be there.
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JamesK
Contributor
Yeah, this very topic about name changes came up in another thread. Some moderators change thread titles when they think it should be titled something else "to make it easier to find with search engines".
SeaHorse81
Contributor
I think the title Jim mentions in post #14 would be far more fitting to the topic than the title that's been selected by moderators. I don't understand the idea of someone changing a thread's title without the poster's knowledge and when nothing about the content was offensive or inappropriate.
Bhtmec2
Contributor
Just my 2 cents but if a MOD wants to change a name they should communicate with the OP to make sure it works for the OPs line of thought. This change is not good.
OP
I'm not the mod of record involved with this, but I'm going to address your comments here anyway.
Just to be clear, you authorized the change when you agreed to the Terms of Service.
While we do try to respect the content and placement that an individual chooses, there are times when it is deemed necessary for moves or changes to be made. My advice would have been that you report the post FIRST and wait for a response from the mod in question, rather then posting angrily about it in the thread. Chances are you would probably have been provided a reasonable explanation and given an opportunity to plead your case for having it remain titled and placed as originally done by you. As it stands, you chose that route 2 hours later and several of us have already weighed in with our opinions, but we're waiting a response from the original mod before making a decision.
I am the moderator of record for the thread in question, and while we do not normally engage in public debate about specific moderation actions, since Jim takes a position of such righteous anger, not responding to his complaints would only seem to justify the anger when in fact the anger is baseless.
Now that I have responded to the charges of unfair moderation, I will not discuss this specific case any further. If there are more general questions about thread moves, title changes, and communication, I will be happy to share my thoughts.
Jim, your permission for moving threads from inappropriate forums to appropriate ones is not needed. Moving threads is part of the "housekeeping" moderators do every day, and in fact, your thread attracted a number of bad post reports questioning its original placement. Your thread describes a "near miss" and offers a lecture about "lessons" drawn from the incident. As I explained in my PM to you at the time of the move, the Near Misses and Lessons Learned forum is the perfect home to recount incidents like this one.
When I moved the thread, I PM'd Jim and provided the reason I have offered above in explanation. I also told him that his original title needed to be changed because it purported to state the reason for a specific accident resulting in a death--knowledge Jim simply cannot rightly claim. I asked Jim to suggest a new title. I waited 36 hours for Jim to respond to my PM, and I noted that during that time he was able to post no less than 5 times in various areas of the board (including in the thread in question), so I knew he had been online, and yet he did not see fit to reply to my PM. During that entire 36 hours, the thread title remained unchanged in anticipation of some input from Jim as to the wording he preferred. If, as he hints, he chose to wait to respond because he was so "pissed off" that he wanted to cool down before writing, I can only say that 36 hours is quite a long cooling down period, and I don't feel that my action was in any way precipitous.
I agree that communication is key. But communication is a two-way street. I wrote to Jim. I waited 36 hours. Hearing nothing back from him, I had no alternative but to take action without his input. In fact, he has still not responded to my PM. Instead, he has chosen a public forum to air his views, which, by the way, were not even addressed to me but rather to the readership.
Now that I have responded to the charges of unfair moderation, I will not discuss this specific case any further. If there are more general questions about thread moves, title changes, and communication, I will be happy to share my thoughts.
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dumpsterDiver
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You guys micro-manage this board...
<rant>
Actually we would prefer not to manage it at all. The staff isn't paid and we can all probably find many other things we could do with our time, maybe even go diving.
But we did agree to help out here and we do feel that when members report posts that the staff should take a look at the post or thread that's been reported and then we discuss the issue and try to come to a fair and reasonable disposition and then implement it. Way more often than you think our disposition is to do nothing.
The VAST majority of the members here say that they think we do a reasonable job at it.
In fact the number one complaint we hear is that people here are too nasty, the folks making that complaint invariably think that we don't provide enough management of the board.
There is also a very vocal minority here that want no staff intervention at all. They feel that they should be able to be as rude as they want and excuse their lack of civility with phrases like "Just telling it like it is", "It's for their own good" or my favorite "I'm just sayin". They seem to feel that anyone that is offended with their words should just get a thicker skin.
Pete is the owner of the board but RARELY intervenes in the staff moderation of the board. He wants the folks here to feel a sense of community and to feel safe in having civil open discussions about our sport. He's picked folks for advisors that he and the other advisors feel will enable that. They in turn search out and recruit other users to help implement the policies on a daily basis, the moderators. We try to be as fair as we can in what we do but as with any other human endeavor we're not perfect.
We're always happy to hear suggestions on how we can do a better job of making folks feel welcome here and promote this community and make it easier for our users to locate the information they're looking for.
If anyone feels that the atmosphere here is too repressive for their tastes then I apologize that we have not succeeded in meeting your needs, BUT, we are not going to let this community turn into rec.scuba, and for that I don't apologize. There are many other online forums available out there and I would encourage you to search out one that is a better fit for your needs or even consider starting your own board, I promise we won't hinder you from doing that and if you succeed in creating a board or community that fills that need better than we do we'll happily suggest it to users that seem to be like minded and encourage them to explore that option.
</rant>
Actually we would prefer not to manage it at all. The staff isn't paid and we can all probably find many other things we could do with our time, maybe even go diving.
But we did agree to help out here and we do feel that when members report posts that the staff should take a look at the post or thread that's been reported and then we discuss the issue and try to come to a fair and reasonable disposition and then implement it. Way more often than you think our disposition is to do nothing.
The VAST majority of the members here say that they think we do a reasonable job at it.
In fact the number one complaint we hear is that people here are too nasty, the folks making that complaint invariably think that we don't provide enough management of the board.
There is also a very vocal minority here that want no staff intervention at all. They feel that they should be able to be as rude as they want and excuse their lack of civility with phrases like "Just telling it like it is", "It's for their own good" or my favorite "I'm just sayin". They seem to feel that anyone that is offended with their words should just get a thicker skin.
Pete is the owner of the board but RARELY intervenes in the staff moderation of the board. He wants the folks here to feel a sense of community and to feel safe in having civil open discussions about our sport. He's picked folks for advisors that he and the other advisors feel will enable that. They in turn search out and recruit other users to help implement the policies on a daily basis, the moderators. We try to be as fair as we can in what we do but as with any other human endeavor we're not perfect.
We're always happy to hear suggestions on how we can do a better job of making folks feel welcome here and promote this community and make it easier for our users to locate the information they're looking for.
If anyone feels that the atmosphere here is too repressive for their tastes then I apologize that we have not succeeded in meeting your needs, BUT, we are not going to let this community turn into rec.scuba, and for that I don't apologize. There are many other online forums available out there and I would encourage you to search out one that is a better fit for your needs or even consider starting your own board, I promise we won't hinder you from doing that and if you succeed in creating a board or community that fills that need better than we do we'll happily suggest it to users that seem to be like minded and encourage them to explore that option.
</rant>
While a discussion of moderation isn't the purpose here... Let me say this:
Actually, it's not the "guys" who micro-manage the board... It's the users who report the posts.
Moderators are mostly REACTIVE, and act when people (other users) report the posts. Moderators don't go reading everything to find violations of TOS. If you're feeling picked on, maybe the other users are reporting more of your posts?
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