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Are you offended - really????

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i am just now getting feel for people, their humour, tone, where their interests lie. like moto for example, you can rail on him pretty hard and he comes back for more. novella while very academic has a wicked sense of humour. all the mods imo are very easy going and seem to enjoy the debates. i like to read a lot of back posts to see where people are coming from. this particular forum does seem to attract a lot of like minded people, so in the case of the schiavo thread i think a few of the posters might have felt attacked as they were in the minority.
as i said earlier, it takes courage to have a less popular opinion and defend it.
but i still stand by my statement that if you are going to venture into an arena that is opinion driven, that is all the forum is really loads and loads of opinions, you have to be prepared to butt heads, and support what you say.
 
Kenny said:
To be honest the application of rules over the last few days has come across to me as being rather heavy-handed and would have been better handled by more gradual warnings rather than just the closing of threads ..
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The rules haven't been tightened, recently - there have just been a few more 'troublesome' threads than usual. Plus, in one of those two threads, I made several warnings (for lack of a better word), before a PM from a member stating that it was in fact offending arrived on our doorstep and we were forced to take action. Not popular, I know, but necessary.

Novella said:
In retrospect, do you think they were reading the communications rationally? Do you think there was something legitimate to be offended about?
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Maybe, maybe not. Who can tell, except for that person him/herself?

Jenn - no, we can't make everyone happy. We're very well aware of that, but we do our best to keep as many people as possible happy.

Novella said:
I just want to interject here that I think the mods do a stellar job most of the time, over the long haul. Thanks crew!
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:D Appreciated.

Cheers
 
i haven't been offended, but i found a post offensive once. such is life. people say and do things that offend. meh. i would say my piece about it but i would never stoop to insults or abandon the forum because of it.
 
As a newbie, I am still feeling my way around and getting the feel for people's varying personalities and writing styles.

If there is a post I find offensive, or think would offend me, I avoid it. Outside of outright personal attacks, I believe it's my responsibility to avoid being offended. So while I may not agree with everyone, I'm not upset by anyone's differing opinion. If everyone agreed, life would be boring, no?

One of the things that drew me to this forum is the amount of respect everyone seems to show one another - even if there are jokes (some tasteless, some classic), people seem to feel comfortable sharing their opinions - like on the pope thread...

Then again, maybe I'm just not easily offended. ;)
 
Martin said:
The rules haven't been tightened, recently - there have just been a few more 'troublesome' threads than usual.
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Obviously as a new member I am unaware of any kind of history regarding ‘troublesome’ threads on the board, and my comments are only made from what I have seen over the last few days.
Martin said:
in one of those two threads, I made several warnings (for lack of a better word)
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and in the other no warnings were made, it was simply locked.
Martin said:
a PM from a member stating that it was in fact offending arrived on our doorstep and we were forced to take action.
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Forced? Can I suggest you choose to take action.
Martin said:
Not popular, I know, but necessary.
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I would not for a second suggest that the mods enjoy locking threads or take actions like this lightly. From what little I have seen of the board a ‘light hand on the tiller’ seems to be the order of the day and I think it is appreciated by everyone here.
However, I still believe that the locking of the ‘Jesus Doll’ thread was heavy handed. Now, as the mods have taken the view that they should make judgment calls on whether a line has been crossed regarding Political & Religious posts, then posters themselves are at liberty to make judgements on their decisions. In this instance I disagree with the way things were handled but hey, we can all live with that as individual threads are not really a big deal.
What is more problematical is what ‘forced’ the mods to act, and for this I’ll quote from one of your warnings:
Martin said:
If even one person disagrees to such an extent that he/she feels forced to leave, we'll have failed as moderators.
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What is problematical is that this means you have also failed if people feel that censorship is being applied, on behalf of people who have not objected in the thread itself, and as such leave the board themselves. Mods are well aware that they have to strike a balance; I am merely trying to point out that the balance is not between closing threads or losing members but between losing members because you allow a thread or losing members because you censor it.

But more importantly perhaps, the Newcastle game is on TV!
 
it's a curious thing really. what does offend? rudeness offends me. people being inconsiderate offend me. ie talking in theatres, butting in line, mouthing off at people who are just doing thier jobs.
disrespect offends me. at a recent staff party one of the guys brought his girlfriend. a pretty young girl and she had never met any of us before. one of the sales guys, who has been there for years and is in a position of authority was openly oogling her and literally smacking his lips if she walked by. she was really uncomfortable as she was unsure of how to handle it with him being in a supervisor type position over her boyfriend. matt however does not answer to this guy and i told him he was being rude, disrespectful and a pig. he thinks i am a bitch, but that affects my day, about this much...
 
jenngorham said:
disrespect offends me. at a recent staff party one of the guys brought his girlfriend. a pretty young girl and she had never met any of us before. one of the sales guys, who has been there for years and is in a position of authority was openly oogling her and literally smacking his lips if she walked by. she was really uncomfortable as she was unsure of how to handle it with him being in a supervisor type position over her boyfriend. matt however does not answer to this guy and i told him he was being rude, disrespectful and a pig. he thinks i am a bitch, but that affects my day, about this much...
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disrespect offends me too. it's one of the only things that does, but it's so bloody rampant. good for you giving that pig the whatfor. that kind of behaviour just floors me. i was disrespected at a party once, about 10 years ago. it ended badly for the guy who offended me.
 
The other thing is how many "offenses" does it take to close a thread?

Can one person, making one remark, about a thread be enough to close it?

There might be 10 or 12 other people having a respectful pro/con thing going on and one person can shut that down?

Don't the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?

Also, wouldn't it be constructive for those of us involved in the thread to know what the offending material might be?

Yeah, the pope eating spaghetti thread was a touchie one, but anybody seriously offended should have known not even to open it just by the title.

I've heard enough arguements about not censoring books for children, yet we're having to censor a forum filled with adults?

Is there room for a "no-holds barred, if you can't take it don't go there" kind of sub-forum? Maybe make access to that sub-forum limited to members who've been around for 6 months minimum? Or posted more then 400 times or something like that?
 
I'm offended by this thread.................. ;)

Lifes too short to get wound up by posts on a forum. Some things i may not agree with but hey.....we're all different :)
 
moto,
i think that idea gets to exclusive, too clicky. and i think the mods have to have a certain level of confidentiallity in the event that those making the complaints won't feel ostracized by those they are complaining about, should they choose to stay.
i really feel that they do give us just enough rope and then close a thread when we are about to hang ourselves. it's a judgement call and like everything else is subject to opinion.
maybe an idea would be posting a thread saying online debate about what have you, at this time and then conducting it offsite via msn. you could maybe make dates available and those that wish to participate could.
no clue how this would work.
 
I've never felt that any discussion worth having was shut down by the mods.

In the past there have been some ranty tangents with a vulgar slant that got slapped down. To me, that's really not a big deal.

Keeping everything open and accessible, with complete access for new posters, is very important. Fresh blood! Yummy. :D
 
Kenny said:
What is problematical is that this means you have also failed if people feel that censorship is being applied, on behalf of people who have not objected in the thread itself, and as such leave the board themselves. Mods are well aware that they have to strike a balance; I am merely trying to point out that the balance is not between closing threads or losing members but between losing members because you allow a thread or losing members because you censor it.
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People leaving because we (as you put it) censor them, is up to them. If they've been censored, then they've broken one of the very few simple rules we have here. Don't do that, and we won't have to take action. If we do have to take action, and that person is offended to such a degree that he or she leaves, then that's up to them. Regretable though.

However, if a member, who hasn't posted anything offensive, and broken no rules, reads something that really offends them and they leave, we, as moderators, have missed something. Now, I know people can get offended by all kinds of things, but even you must acknowledge that religion and politics are very touchy subjects. That's why they're singled out.

Moto said:
The other thing is how many "offenses" does it take to close a thread?
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It takes one remark, and a lot of discussion between the mods. There have been numerous threads about which people complained, and they weren't closed, simply because we decided against it. These last two threads were edgy to begin with. Add to that the complaints we received, and it was an easy decision.

Novella said:
Keeping everything open and accessible, with complete access for new posters, is very important.
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We're keeping it as open and as accessible as we can.

Cheers
 
In all honesty, if there's no censorship or moderation in a
forum, what's to stop anyone from posting whatever they want? I mean really. Personally, I believe that putting up a disclaimer saying "read at your own risk," just gives people a license to post whatever they want. I'm all open for sharing opinions and such, (there has been some really thought provoking dialogue here) but it can be done in a a sensitive manner. A while ago I saw a thread dealing with "Jesus dolls." While I didn't get offended by the thread, it did get out hand and some of the comments were just plain
crude. People shouldn't leave a post because something offends them, but they do have a right to complain when a post truly hits below the belt.
 
I've probably offended people because I'm blunt - always honest - and some people just can't take that.

So what? I'll probably never meet them. I don't want to meet them.

On the offensive topics slant, I don't understand why people get bothered to involve themselves in stuff they don't know what they are talking about. Most Evolution v Creation threads on a number of forums usually twist off into bible bashing and overzealous proclamations of atheism. The reason? The rest of the forum breeds the mentality.

1f |/\|3 411 5p34|< l337 then that's a good indication the forum is immature and can't handle it. A mature forum can handle the discussions because the members aren't encouraged to spill crap over the forums; the mentality is one of mutual respect over differing gangs and in-groups.

This forum, I feel, is maturing. It's members are becoming more discussive of interesting issues (thanks Motokid, novella, and jenn :) ) but I feel, and I've vocalised my thoughts on this before, there is still a lot of crap that gets posted which still encourages the in-group mentality. Never ending links to games, pointless pictures, hey, remember me, I was last on here today threads, and their ilk are bringing down the forum's maturity level. And who are the biggest contributors of these threads (with the exception of the latter example)? Oh, some of the forum's more recent moderators! :rolleyes:

Ok, that's me.
 
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