New Mods - a *tad* overzealous?

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This.
Also I made it clear several times that Im open to suggestions on how to make things easier for everyone and so far the only suggestion Ive had is to avoid using curse words even with *** and as a joke because Im apparently meant to be a role model and even though I find it a bit ridiculous Im trying to follow it.

it's not about entertainment `and "getting off" on flame wars and butthurt people. it's about censorship and isolating people from potentially offensive material. we're all grown-ups here, aren't we? some people come here to vent off negative feelings and I think I'm not the only one who would rather help them than silence them. even if that means beating yet another dead horse.

now I understand the WP rules but yet again it looks to me like yet another set of mods is trying to be more NT than the NTs. and like you said hyperlexian you can't satisfy everyone but acting on emotions (like someone taking offense) on a website for autistics and people on the spectrum really narrows the limits of expression for a lot of people, especially folk with ODD issues and such.

I'm just trying to point out that the people who get offended are not the only crowd here and why should they always take the upper hand over logical, rational people who seek debate?

as moderators we bring various experiences, training, perspectives, and ideas to the table. if we tried to please everyone we would please nobody. ask a teacher and you'll get the same response. we do our best to balance the various needs and best interests of people on the site, but we also have our own personalities and strengths.

if you would like to take more time to help some of the individuals who get out of control, you are of course welcome to do so. many of us spend significant amounts of time doing the same, both as moderators and as members, and this is always welcome. feel free to step in and assist on any one of the threads that recently degenerated and had problems in L&D. any insight would be most helpful in the threads themselves.

most of the time we don't edit anything except direct attacks. i am unsure how those edits would prevent you from helping or supporting fellow members in need. you don't really need to see someone call another member a jerk in order to assist them in their time of need, as we don't usually remove entire posts. we also give warnings or directions in PMs and on the thread itself, but it does not prevent you from adding your own respectful input.

about the members who get overly upset and start attacking... nobody has a special right to break the rules and flame or insult other members or groups (for example), regardless of how angry or depressed they are.

flaming groups is the daily bread of the PPR forum. am I understanding correctly that it's the only subforum where this is allowed?

feel free to alert a mod any time you see that happening.

I'm afraid I'm not on your side in the free speech issue

Anna I'm new here but I do mod another forum. It is a really tricky & unpaid job for aspie & NT alike, if you are heavy handed some people feel stifled and persecuted but if you take a light touch approach approach some people (sometimes the same people!) feel bullied and victimised.

It's a thankless task that really does bring home to you the fact that you can't please all of the people all of the time, you have to settle for trying to serve 'the best interests of the community' TM and hope that you please some of the people some of the time in the process.

I know where you are coming from defending free speech, the problem is if a thread is allowed to continue un-modded when people are launching personal attacks against each other the resentment it causes lasts a long time and spills over on to other threads affecting other people. Before you know it the nice, supportive place turns into a place to have a brawling match.

I didnt say that it was about entertainment or anything so Im guessing that you quoted the wrong person anyways here we go:

I had to contact a few lovely members on L&D because they were attacking the trolls and I made it clear to them that while we understand that the first reaction to a troll is to act in a similar way if thats the case both parties have to be contacted when theres a problem.
This members asked me to keep a closer eye to what members that are more likely to get in trouble because of their tendency to break the rules write, I told them I´d do my best and so far I havent had to contact any member about attacking another member.

Theres no rule against venting which means that if you are able to complain about whats going on without insulting the opposite gender you are more than free to do so at L&D. I understand that some members may want to vent about their experiences critizicing the opposite gender and if Im not mistaken the haven is a place designated for venting where this members could be helped and it wouldnt conflict with L&Ds main idea:
"
This should be a forum where both men and women can be comfortable trying to figure out what is going on in their lives. Generalizations along the lines of "all women are shallow" or "all men are jerks" interfere with that, and are offensive to the members of the gender mentioned. Please be careful to NOT make conclusions or statements that extend beyond your personal experience and the particular people involved."(taken from the tos reminder).

Nobody is acting on emotions. Most of the members that have had their posts edited were previously contacted about breaking the rules several times and refuse to listen. Since they refuse to listen and they havent caused any huge trouble yet we are taking the time to edit the part of their posts that they were asked to delete for themselves.
Ive contacted a couple of members that only made one post breaking this and I can assure you that while members are a bit offended at first and questioning how the rules are applied once you explain to them that you are just trying to improve the situation there they are more than happy to edit their posts and they wish us luck on this aspect.

We have to take the upper hand because there are rules against sexism and if someone contacts us saying that another member is breaking the rules on this aspect we have to get in touch with this member, if the member refuses to listen we have to edit their posts(SadAspy is known for attacking a female member frequently and we have to edit his posts before she sees them, several members approached me about lilyfadad´s posts...).

You can have a rational argument with this members if you wish, Ive just been approached by multiple people that dont think that sexism should be considered a part of a rational argument.


As stated above its impossible to please everyone and theres a policy that states what we have to do if someone keeps breaking the rules(contact them/edit rule infringement of their posts if its still done).

We are just making sure that the rules are followed accordingly, if you have any trouble with the rules you can open a new topic where we can discuss them/approach alex who is the only one that can change them.

ps: since Ive received no complaints about it you can discuss why females that claim to be attracted to something that isnt money/looks/status are only attention-seeking at the I want a real woman thread.

If he's still doing that, let me know. We need to ban him, not edit his posts.

I have no problem with the mods on this site. However I think that if they edit or delete something ior ban someone that should be publicly posted. Recently there was a troll thread where a poster used the word "fag" in the title. The mod edited the title but I didn't understand the posts because the offending word was missing.

I enjoy WP because of its civility. There are lots of places on the internet where flame wars are routine. I could be entertaining but it lowers the quality of the forum. Keep up the good work mods and thanks for keeping WP civil.

ok thanks spongy for clarifying that. there's been a lot of editing going on at the L&D lately so I appologise for jumping into conclusions but it just seemed slightly disturbing.



erm, thanks?

anna-banana is trying to ignite a full-scale coup d'état in WP!! She's a double agent for lilypad and co.! !!

Burn the witch! Burn the witch! ;p

yeah we're all the same person, like Fight Club

Spoiler alert!

That can be a hard line to draw, to know when to let members work it out in a thread, v. when to interfere. Something moderators get a feel for over time.

Personally, I think it is a luxury to have enough moderation to catch these things before they've become a flame war. When I was moderating, I would say that being more hands off was less of a moderation decision than a forced one: we couldn't read around enough of the forum to be aware that fast.

you mean there are people who have not seen/read it?!