Moderator dismissal arguments?
 

So, how does it work here when a Moderator locks a thread because he doesn't, personally, like the way it is going?

I know we are all human but authority comes with responsibility, as well as privileges. IME, when something attains a "personal" edge, it is usually possible to hand over to an uninvolved 3rd party.

is that not the case here?

Gavin

I took a couple of excerpts from the forumn rules:

"...Rants are OK, but a measure of civility and mutual respect is a requirement to post here. We encourage subjective opinions and discussions of individual experiences and perceptions. No unwarranted personal attacks or arguments without a conclusion will be tolerated. We discourage stratifying users into pro- or anti-OS X...."

"...You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use this forum to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violative of any law. You agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyrighted material is owned by you, or you have explicit permission in writing...."

I have not seen a thread closed when the basic rules are followed. Any closing I've seen the posters are usually way off the original posted topic and starting to trash each other or someone else.

I'm sure the Moderators will post their comments here too.

I agree. The moderators here are quite lax compared to other forums and they do stick to the rules... Have yet to see one closed thread where I'd say it was not justified.

I can understand what you're trying to say.
It looks a lot like threads containing messages contradicting the personal convictions of mods are at risk to be closed ahellofalot faster than equally political/religious content that doesn't rub the wrong way.

And while those who run the forum get to make the rules, it might indeed be a Good Thing to limit moderator intervention to personal attacks and clearly illegal content.

Technology and Politics are difficult to seperate and most of the mods tend to agree, but there is indeed still some progress to be made when it comes to fight the temptation of pushing ones own opinion using mod privileges.

It is not easy to tolerate opinions that clearly contradict yours, but as long as the discussion is based on arguments rather than personal insults, resisting the temptation to abuse mod priviledges to let ones own point of view win is certainly the sign of real human qualities.

THose are my thoughts exactly.

I hesitate to reply here, lest some one let 20+ rats loose in my house, but I have to agree as well. :D

You let MS employes into your house ? Shame on you :)

Provide examples, please.

Gavin might have had others in mind, in my opinion, there are cases where the thread starter turns out to be insulting and unfriendly for no good reason and I've got no problem with threads such as this being closed because of that, rather than for the "political" reasons invoked:

http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=54435

For lots of others, it remains questionable why exactly it needed to be closed and to what extent the sole personal (and debatable) opinion of the mod involved played a significant role.
Just some random samples, there are more:

China-Yahoo
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=44325

China-Microsoft
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=40945

Quotes:
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=50824

p2p/Copyright:
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?p=219325

On the bright side, other threads with similarly "hot" topics remained open and it seems that we are several to feel that a friendly, open discussion of various topics seems to be favored over some thought-police-like mod intervention.

Given the sorry state of the political situation around the world, it is encouraging to see that at least debating controversial topics remains possible.

Well, first thing to remember is that not every thread gets read by us, there are plenty that are probably of questionable quality/merit that are still open.

Please remember:

(Though that should probably be amended to say "deleted or locked".)

And since everyone had to agree to this contingency when they signed up for a user/password, everyone has to abide by that rule.

As for political threads, or threads that start to sway into the political realm, the original purpose of the forum was to discuss Mac OS X, and the hardware it runs on. There are plenty of forums out there where one can discuss politics/religious/sexual orientation/warez/hacking/etc.. but we've tried to keep this one from being one. Overall it makes life easier for the Mods and the Admins if heated debates that have more to do with politics (or whatever) than computers are kept to a minimum.

(Though I will admit there's a large portion of (IMO) worthless threads in the Coat Room, a few of which, I am guilty of starting.)

In some cases, it looks like the thread was closed to stop the pointless beating of an already very dead horse.

I must say, I take offense at this statement. This forum is not a democracy. It is a benevolent totalitarian society. If it does not meet your needs, while I would be sorry to see you and your expertise go, I encourage you to move on or drop it.

I was certainly not intending to offend you or any other mod, nor am I that easy to provoke.

What exactly is offensive in the statement that over time there has been some progress in the direction gavin and a lot of others, including myself, favor ? Is "thought police" really worse than "totalitarian society" ?

Also note that Gavin (and I'm with him) does not contest the mods, but simply underlines that authority and responsability go together.
Pointing out the legalese of the forum rules misses the point.

Anyway, I'm glad to see that there's a majority of posters in this thread for an open debate rather than restrictive moderation and would like to see this as an encouragement to continue in that direction rather than to pick a pointless fight over bruised egos.

I think the most important point is that (as has been mentioned above) the macosxhints forums are not intended as discussion forums. They are help forums. The Coat Room is the one exception - the only place where discussions on non-OS X topics are permitted.

But even in the Coat Room, there is a prohibition on discussion of politics or religion. Any such thread is likely to get closed sooner or later. Thus many of the examples referred to by voldenuit above are threads that really shouldn't have existed. They were living on borrowed time.
I don't think it is useful to debate whether or not those particular threads were closed because the discussion ran up against the personal opinions of the moderators/admins. They were closed because they violated the above-mentioned prohibitions. Why weren't they closed earlier? Because even moderators/admins enjoy such discussions sometimes and so might let a thread live on when they shouldn't.

My personal opinion is that it would be better (easier for the moderators/admins, more consistent, avoid complaints like this thread) if the Coat Room as a whole were to be closed. I.e. I propose that the macosxhints forums should completely prohibit all non-OS X discussion.

And I think it would grow more and be better served by adding a free-for-all room with no rules.

I am a bit torn between what hayne and Carlos wrote:

If only what Carlos suggests was a troll-proof way to run a forum. I'm pretty confident that by now, the risk is small, but a determined troll-team, unchallenged, could cause some serious trouble.

Leaving it completely open is risky, the fate of most usenet-groups is indeed not something one would want to happen here.

But there are clearly two types of threads that get closed:
Some definitely deserve to be because personal attacks are going back and forth. But others, and the amount of contributions in those underlines the interest by the forum community, get closed even though they clearly don't do any harm to the forums harmony.

Technology and its effects on society and politics are entangled. There is no way to discuss certain technical topics in a meaningful way without having a perspective beyond mouse and keyboard. Drawing a line would be extremely difficult.

And I hope that the mod community will continue to have the courage to tolerate opinions different from their own.
I like to read contributions that provide arguments demolishing the idea I had on a subject before, it is thought-provoking and interesting. There is nothing to be lost in a debate, the better argument wins and there's a lot to be learnt from the material both sides provide to make their point.

And thinking different should be something dear to all Mac users...

That is never going to happen.
You seem to miss the main point I made above - that the raison d'être of the macosxhints forums is to provide a place where OS X users can help each other with technical problems. The ideal situation from this point of view would be that the number of posts (help requests) would gradually decrease to zero (because OS X was so easy to use and had no bugs and provided all the things that all users desired) and thus the forums could close entirely.
I.e. the aim of the forums is to put ourselves out of a job.

Discussion forums do not fit into the above scenario. There is always something to discuss. There are plenty of other places where you can go and discuss whatever you want. This is not the place.

i totally agree with the moderation of this forum, however i do get gavin's point, and i think what stirs a point like that is when the threads are closed with the last 'tuppence' of the mod that closes it. and it has been more than once the mod has 'had his say' on the final post on the thread.

it can be somewhat irksome to read sometimes, and i guess that with a position of responsibility, it should be a bit neater, close the thread without the final say etc.

i remember a thread recently, regarding favourite jokes, and there was a mod there, who was keeping tabs on things, but now and then would say 'oh you can't say that about george bush' then, 'ok'd' a similar comment made about tony blair etc.

i think...
that if you choose to be a moderator, then your own personal opinions should not escape the main point of the forum, which lies in tech support.
we the members, should be allowed a 'free reign' within the general disscussion areas, that should be moderated.
general disscussion is mainly based on people sharing opinions and communicating, there will always be somthing to upset someone.
i think this thread wouldnt exist if those threads where policed, but not confusing grey areas sometimes.
think of it as an office party, everyone behaving casually and off the cuff, the boss included. everyone arseing around, but suddenly at one point the boss says "your fired"
i dont envy the task of moderating threads, and i'm not saying, moderators stay out either, i just think all the trouble starts where opinions are shared, and maybe then its where the moderators duck out of sharing their own, before blocking a thread.

damn, i hated writing that.

i dont have issues with anything here, however i dont think this is a pointless thread, its a growing community, and good to clarify things now and again, (i have to confess, i havent spent ages re-reading the rules before each post)

anyway, i'm waffling now (actually totally high on paint fumes! decorating right now! - forgive me if i just wrote a load of bollocks!)

My thought on this is very simple and direct; the technical knowledge to help anyone who wishes to create their own discussion board on their own server is available by asking for assistance at this one.

This is a technical site, not a political, social, religious, "free-for-all" or general discussion one, and I'm a bit surprised and disappointed that a few pretty smart longtime members with a large number of posts haven't picked up on that fact. Personally, I believe the tech sites which encouraged that behavior have declined greatly in quality over the years in which I've followed them. I won't name names.

I do not speak for Rob, Phil, John or Mac Publishing LLC in this post, nor would I wish to. Just for Craig.

I agree with you hayne.

Nothing is troll-proof nor flame-proof. And certainly you can mod obvious problems. However, a free market works in social situations just like it does in financial ones; the users themselves can usually moderate problem people. I say this with the experience of running some very successful forums with that method. And yeah, they started as "help" and tech forums but evolved without constraint into both help and social forums.

I understand the help/tech mission of the site. However, after some time here I've figured out who does things like I do, or differently, and who has experience in what areas. This means that I can gain more information from discussions by understanding the position and style of the writer. A lot of that comes from social posts both on the forums and by PM/e-mail. So there is value to non-technical posts and personal discussion. I find that to be true on all the forums I use and run.

To answer Craig's disappointment, I'll just say that I fully realize that this is a technical site, but completely disagree that it should be restricted that way. I also know that I'm not going to change anyone's mind, so I guess the above is all just mental masturbation.

As far as closing the Coat Room section, how about not going there if you don't like it? I never understood the motivation of preventing others from seeing things that you don't like, instead of just avoiding them yourself.

I just wanted to say that I love the coat room. Even if it is not really the intention of this forum to extend beyond technical support, I still really value the things I read in the coat room that let you know more about this forum's members aside from computer related things. (I do realize this may be a silly statement, since, well, this is a computer forum :))

For the record, I have never seen a thread closed by a mod here in such a fashion that I thought it wasn't warranted...i've always liked the lax, respectable, and professional atmosphere here.

So keep up the good work everyone!

:)

I must say that I read MacOSXhints.com primarily as a technical resource, not only when I have a problem, but when I see one I don't know the solution to myself. I've learned a lot here, and if the Coat Room was closed, as Hayne suggests, I'd still read the 'hints rss feed, and come for a look see regularly.

Having said that, however, I must say I do read the Coat Room regularly and often enjoy (and even join) debates here, and I notice Hayne does too. I think the moderators are extremely reasonable about what they accept and reject and have no difficulty at all with the notion that they can accept or reject whatever they please without recourse and with prejudice for that matter.

To me, this is like the Op Ed page of a newspaper. You can write all the letters you like, and some editor whom you don't know and who doesn't justify the decision in any way, will toss your brilliant analysis of a current situation in the trash.

I think we should view the Coat Room as a privilege. We can argue here provided we don't exceed certain bounds, and we don't always understand just exactly where those bounds are. Great - we can still argue here. If you don't like that, start your own blog where you can say whatever you like and when your favorite thread is savaged here, pick it up there. Maybe someone will read it.

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First and foremost: MacOSXHints and especially the Forum are really great! The helpfulness that I have encountered here, time and again, is an exemplary case of true generosity!

And for that we can thank:

• Rob, who started it all!
• The moderators who give us so much of their time!
• Every Forum member who participates in a positive spirit

The Coat Room is one of the most valuable areas of the Forum. In my opinion it is vital -- in the double meaning of the word.

Gavin’s post and this thread caused me to reflect: Why do I enjoy the Forum so much, and why do I find it valuable? Why do I feel it is a good place to be?

Well, obviously because of the generosity and knowledge that suffuses the entire Forum – with its 50 000+ threads and more than a quarter of a million posts.

Because of the high content level and comparatively little chatter. (Generally if someone has nothing to say, they shut up.) ;)

These qualities also make the Forum a true community -- and I am proud and feel privileged to be a member.

The Coat Room is the liveliest place where these qualities come to the fore.

I particularly value the discussions where we can step back and look at the larger picture in a technological age. Examples:

• Where is our technology headed in the longer term.
• What inventions and devices would we like to see?
• What do Apple’s recent strategic choices mean -- and how do they change the ball game.
• The practical and philosophical aspects of DRM/DMCA
• Including the Supreme Court ruling on file sharing -- a fine thread started (and to my surprise closed) by Phil
• Filtering technology
• The responsibility and behaviour of software houses in f.ex. China
• Alternative distribution of digital content (ref. the thread by Voldenuit)

What has pleased me immensely is that we can clearly discuss such matters in an intelligent and civil manner! All in all, there are extremely few exceptions.

I think it would be a tragedy to close the door on this.


With best regards,
ArcticStones
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That's not an option for moderators.
There is never going to be a completely unmoderated section on this site.

Our deep respect for the moderators!
 

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I don’t think Gavin’s thoughts are intended as complaint, nor do I read anything written by anybody else in that light.

What I do see is a couple of friendly and very mild suggestions, and questions, with regards to moderation. And I think those are valid. The very fact that those suggestions and questions are uttered is an expression of deep respect for each and every moderator of the Forum!

In fact everyone goes out of their way to express deep and sincere appreciation of the Forum and the way that it is (by and large) moderated. Myself included. Keep up the good work! :)


With best regards,
ArcticStones

.

Olav also points out the opportunity to talk to people all over the world who share at least one common intellectual interest. It's not like I could go on Myspace.com or a similar place and find intelligent adults to talk to. It is only through professional sites like this that such opportunities can be found. Sometimes it's nice to talk about more than just the computers.

I've read each person's post in this thread and find therm all to be making valid points (well except maybe my second one, but I do apologize for that one). As stated a few times, tech does indeed go way beyond just the technical aspect of fixing a computer or informing the person as to what needs to be done. Its also about people helping people out, generously using they free time to communicate to others what knowledge they have and to ask for help without jugement when needed. Thats the great part about the hints forums here and the main reason I joined and po0sted so often... Its a nice friendly space with few rules (not too strick either) and where most people actually naturally respect one another, from the newcomer to the admins and all other users. Also, as stated by CAlvarez, its nice to see a site where people are mostly professionnals or just have a nack for tech and wish to share.
So to recap, my opinion is that the forums are quite nicely run as they are moderated with caution and do let people voice their opinions in a decent and polite manner.

Well said. I would have to agree.

When we first launched the forum site, many many moons ago now, the Coat Room was probably the one area we debated the longest. In our prior experience, we'd all seen what a poorly run general discussion area can become.

However, we also know that sometimes, people just like somewhere they can blow off steam and chat about almost anything. We weighed the pros and cons closely, and decided we would add a Coat Room, but that we'd do our best to prevent the kinds of behaviors we'd seen on other sites.

That meant a closely moderated Coat Room, with relatively well defined rules. That also means we can't just choose to "not visit" and hope everyone's getting along. Instead, the opposite is true -- the Coat Room requires much more moderation time and energy than does any other topic here. Why? Because if we didn't visit and just came into the room when someone yelled "Help me, I'm being viciously attacked in this thread!" then we'd always be running to put out fires. Better to stay on top of such things rather than letting them fester then explode.

Personally, I'd probably prefer that the Coat Room simply vanish. There are many better places than here to discuss the non-Mac, non-OS X things in our lives. With that said, I'm not going to just arbitrarily do that, as I know many of you enjoy the Coat Room.

Instead, we're going to discuss the issue among the moderators, and perhaps see if we can come up with some clearer rules, and make sure that everyone who participates in the Coat Room understands those rules. As has been pointed out, such rules already exist, but maybe we can make things a bit more black and white for everyone involved.

I welcome any thoughts from others (beyond what's been said here, which I've now read) on how we may proceed. The objectives are to keep the Coat Room, but to reduce the difficulty of the moderators' jobs, and make the decision making process on open/close clearer to all involved.

-rob.

I've had the Coat Room as one of my "charges" since the beginning and have tried to take this responsibility seriously. Given the nature of my work, I haven't always had the time to read every post, but I have made an effort to visit this forum once or twice daily and to at least skim the topics.

We decided early on that we did not want to have discussions on politics and religion, as these topics often flame out of control quickly. Some of you don't think technology can be discussed without bringing politics in, and I agree the two are related. But it's not easy to keep the balance, here, and I don't always know where to draw the "line" when it comes to making a call. Cheap shots at politicians (of any political party) don't seem to have anything to do with the technology/politics tension some of you are bringing up. I'll come down on that all day long as there's no justification for it.

Recently I closed a thread about hunting tigers that seemed to me to be deteriorating on several fronts (read it and see). That was not a topic of much relevance to Mac/Apple, so with the bickering that was emerging, I saw no reason to allow that to continue. If that's what precipitated this present thread, then I make no apologies for doing so. If there are other issues/incidents, however, then it would be good to know. I've gotten a few PMs from some of you along the way, and it's been helpful. Like I said, I don't always know where to draw the line in some of these discussions, but have gone with the best lights I had.

Phil

two cents from a user:

I like the macosxhints.com site a great deal. Though, I do not post much, or often. This usually because someone smarter than myself has allready solved the problem. What keeps me coming back are the main page with all the hints, and forum. I bring up the page and click the new posts button, and read down the list to see if any of the post titles are interesting, then read away. I do not believe I have ever visited the coat room, and it is probably my loss, but I would hate to see this site's forum devolve into something like the one at macnn.com. It seems to me their forum has become all politics, and all religion, and hardly any mac stuff.

Just two cents from me.

Nicanor

A suggestion on the Coat Room
 

Rob,

I’ll take you up on that. :)

In my opinion, the closure of the Coat Room, or a serious curtailment of the topics discussed therein, would constitute a serious loss to the entire community. I think that would be terribly misguided -- and I beg you not to go there!!!

A few thoughts:

Many of us notice to how great a degree the Forum is self-moderating. The vast majority of posters have very high standards in regards to the respect we need to show each other -- and offenders are quickly reprimanded.

May I suggest that this natural dynamic be put to good use? For the benefit of the mods and the community In fact, were one to do so -- mind you, complementing the good judgement of the moderators, not replacing it -- then we could all relax a whole lot more.

The number of "trolls" or serious offenders is minimal. It would be tragic if we all have to pay such a terrible price for that.

* * *

The Coat Room is a special place, and participation therein is a privilege. It should be possible to ban someone (temporarily or permanently) from just the Coat Room.


With best regards,
ArcticStones

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On another forum I mod, there's a "report a post" button that users can employ if things get really out of hand. That eases moderation since the mods don't have to actively look for problems as much.

I guess another question I have is...what is the purpose of the tight control? Is it to avoid offending users and driving them away?

See the exclamation point in the triangle, below everyone's name? :)

-rob.

Never noticed it before. But the point wasn't whether we have one here or not, the point I was making was that it's an option to allow the community to moderate itself. Personally I'd never, EVER report a post or ask to have a thread or post modded, so that's probably why I never noticed the feature.

I am very happy to see how this thread went.
There's really no point to review the justification why one or another thread got closed in the past to start some kind of witch-hunt and point fingers.

A couple of users said:
We like the free discussion of opinions here and would like more of it.

And instead of feeling attacked and posting some if-you-don't-love-us-get-lost/create-a-blog kind of answer, we see nuanced discussion among the mods how to take the wishes expressed into account.

As much as I can understand the fear previous experience created years ago, I believe that the high signal to noise ratio we see in the forums today is indeed a result of good moderation.
Simply allowing to let discussions continue even if they go beyond some mods personal conviction is the only wish respectfully expressed here.
As long as an animated debate on a controversial subject remains based on arguments, it is interesting and worthwhile having.

Lets all try our best to keep intelligent discussion alive, this thread is one example among many that it is possible.

I find that this thread is a good general example of how most discussions happen... Nice decent, polite and every one can express their opinion. It shows as a few people have stated in their posts (ArcticStone mentionned it most clearly) that most people here are serious and take the forums seriously, not as a personnal opinion site.

Moderation and "tight control" are not the same, in my view. Moderation is largely about upholding the designated "rules of the road" for a particular forum. Usually, this means reminding people of what they are. When these are not honored after a warning or two, the thread gets closed. In the case of trolls who habitually agitate for contention, it means banning them, at least from the forum they are abusing.

I strongly oppose a "free-for-all" format, especially re. politics and religion, as it can easily lead to ill-will among members. This would undercut the helpful, supportive atmosphere we hope to maintain, here. Just not worth it, imo.

The question remains: What is the purpose?

Following the rules because they are rules is not a purpose. I'd like to know the reason for the rules. I have an assumption, but if it's wrong, then anything I may say in this discussion may be irrelevant.

I thought Phil stated it rather clearly: As I read that, the overall intent is to allow disagreement without rancour, and specifically banning known-to-be-contentious content based on personal values rather than facts. This doesn't prevent opinion, because we have differing value systems with respect to risk to our systems for example, but it does prevent opinion based on religious belief or political slant.

Nova Scotian put it well. I'll add that assumptions are not the same as rules; they're more pre-conceptions about what/how you think things are. Rules (in this case) are behavioral guidelines which have a reference to the values that the board owners decided we wanted to see upheld here.

Some of what's being suggested, here, seems to be that we eliminate our forum rules/guidelines, the enforcement of which is about the only reason you need moderators. I've been involved on those forums, and it's seemed to me that the trolls and bullies take over after awhile. Those of us (Rob, Craig, John and I) who founded this board had been together on one such for awhile, and had witnessed and experienced first-hand how abusive and damaging that could be. So we decided to provide an alternative for the Mac community, and I think so far we've been successful, in large part because of the peer-to-peer moderation that's gone on at times.

I suppose I'll take a stab at this one: my purpose is to try to keep this site from going down the toilet like a number of others that used to be worthwhile resources, where the various "lounges, rant rooms, and battlefronts" have tended to take over the posting community and overwhelm many useful technical discussions. And in the process drive good people away as well.

I've seen the 'self-moderating forum' scheme fail too many times to place any confidence in the notion, I'm afraid. It's part of becoming old and jaded on the web. :p

If this forum ever becomes like those 'other places' I guess that will be the time I walk away from it.

Once again, speaking only for Craig and nobody else...

I'm in awe of the moderators' willingness to entertain this thread. That alone shows how open to debate they are.

For what it's worth, I think this site is the most useful board on the topic of Apple products because the current policies strike exactly the right balance of permissiveness and control.

Craig, my old jadedness sent me in the other direction; I've seen too many forums or lose good members due to stifling moderation. We will always have to agree to disagree on this issue, and that's fine with me, I understand your position and how you arrived at it.

If the purpose is to keep good members from leaving, or scaring off new members (which was my assumption), then there is a middle ground to be found. For one, the coat room is the last thing you see and it is clearly marked as social, not technical. So there is no reason for discussions there to interfere with the technical sections. Secondly, if there were a bit more liberty in there, I doubt that people would just leave in a huff due to being offended.

I actually don't advocate a complete free-for-all, but some of my suggestions were related to letting the users self-moderate to some extent to relieve the load on the mods. What I do advocate is a little more liberty with the understanding that some of the most egregious posts are not allowed; threats, personal attacks, extreme political rants, etc. I think religion has stayed out completely, unless I missed something, but politics is heavily mixed with technology. How can we discuss the issues around RFID without discussing whether government should or should not keep tabs on its citizens?

Some of the dumb snide remarks about political leaders really shouldn't get people so riled up. Yeah, it's best to avoid having them, but people should also be able to ignore them, or simply to call others out on their childishness or pointless jabs.

I visit a lot of technical and hobby forums, and this is the only technical one where I spend much time. I am about to resign my mod position on another tech board because the moderation has become too heavy-handed to have any friendly discussion with other members, and to get to know them. Talking with and learning from other professionals is more important to me than just dry "fix it" discussions, and this site gives me quite a bit of that.

Oh, and one important thought: I've been talking to number of other long-time users via e-mail and PM. All of us are appreciative of this forum, and concerned with its long-term usability. We all find value here. There is no "us vs. the mods" attitude, we're all wanting the same things. How to achieve them is the only issue.

On a completely off-topic subject: I sadly note the passing of Albert Scott Crossfield, at the age of 84, doing that which he loved, flying.

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Now I suggest we all go have a beer!

I propose a toast to the continued success and well-being of the Forum.
And another toast to the memory of a great pilot.

Cheers!
:)

Wow, I was just chatting with him a month ago at Pima Air Museum, poking around an SR-71. Very friendly guy, brilliant, and charming. I think I may have a photo of us here...in iPhoto of course.

Well, I am sure that I butt heads with several people on this forum since I am not elist or purist when it comes to using computers. I see macs and PCs as equals. A computer is a computer to me, and how you use it defines its usefullness, not the brand name, or the OS.

However, this is hands down one of the best help forums out there, another good one is

http://www.linuxquestions.org which I am also a member of and it is a great resource for linux questions. well there was this PC one that was awesome but then a bunch of kids got on there and it just became flame war after flame war, and I can't even remember the sites name now lol. Haven't been there in a few years.

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Oh boy, now you’ve done it!
:D

"Some of the dumb snide remarks about political leaders really shouldn't get people so riled up. Yeah, it's best to avoid having them, but people should also be able to ignore them, or simply to call others out on their childishness or pointless jabs."

The problem is, of course, is that people can't ignore them. If someone insults something that's dear to your heart, be it politics, religion, or even your favorite color, there's this natural drive to want to explain to them exactly why they were so wrong to insult {whatever it was}. This, in turn, leads to others who feel the other way, explaining why {whatever it was} was actually correct, and that you're a moron if you don't see it their way. Repeat ad infinitum, and you have chaos and a pissed off membership ... all on a forum designed primarily for technical topics :).

But the voices have been heard; we'll figure out a way to keep it open, try to keep everyone happy, and yet not appear to be overly controlling and demi-god-like. :)

-rob.

Ok, maybe we do need to control speech here after all.

The problem is that not everyone can ignore them. One person's political cartoon is a deeply offensive to someone else, and unless you're a real globe trotter, you probably will not know that every time.

To lighten this with a harmless example, my son roomed as an undergraduate in college with a native Japanese boy. They cooked for themselves in a communal kitchen. On their first encounter with spaghetti, however, they each discovered that the other had appallingly bad table manners: my son because of the the monstrous sucking and slurping undertaken by the Japanese boy to get all the hanging strands into his mouth; and the Japanese boy by the fact that my son bit off the trailing strands and let them fall back in his plate.

To my son, making noise while eating was offensive. To his roommate, allowing any morsel to fall back on your plate was offensive. Since that roommate eventually became his best man and vice-versa, it was not a deal breaker, but a learning experience. Bear in mind, though, that they were just eating spaghetti.

Yep, especially since macs are PCs now:eek: :D ;) :cool:

Reminds me of a peeve: A Mac is a PC. "PC" infers no specifics about an operating system or CPU. It is nebulous and vague.

Right. Which is exactly what trolls want as it makes them feel powerful.

I can understand people inadvertantly stepping on toes, or crossing over into political discussion in a topic that naturally lends itself in that direction. Most of the stuff we've blown the whistle on or shut down out here has been hardly been of that type of innocence. Most have been overt, mean-spirited trolls by forum members who should know better -- often continuing after a warning or two. They never apologize for their disruptive behavior, or demonstrate good-will about improving the forum, but often use straw man fallacies to make it seem that the mod is intolerant of a "diversity of opinions." Marvelous! :rolleyes:

Since it looks from Rob's post like this forum will stay open, I'd strongly encourage all of you who say you care so much about the Coat Room to be more assertive in confronting trollish behavior. Report the posts to us, if you don't want to do it. I've informed the other mods that I won't be spending much time here any more, as I've other work I'm needing to attend to. I'll check in when I have time, and I know the others already do so. But I think you can see from what yellow, hayne, and Craig have shared that we're not exactly enthusiastic about continuing to provide this forum. Better make the best of the opportunity that's still available while it's here.

Well,
I don't post here very often, but visit regularly. Basically, I started to come here to get technical help when OS X was 10.0 and have enjoyed the unsurpassed good advice of many posters since.
I tend to enjoy a good, well-argumented discussion, even if it's otherwise pointless - and am all for the "Everything is open for debate". I think that the Coat Room is worth while here, because the users who provide amiable tech help to such an extent as here are often, well, good company in other areas as well. That may be while many enjoy visiting the coat room. I would personally stop visiting if the tech part deteriorates, not if the coat room closes. However, I endorse a more relaxed moderation in the coat room, though I don't recall having read any unduly closed threads myself.
And lemme join the chorus thanking those who put a lot of their own time into this site - thanks guys!!

I don't say much in the Coat Room, but this time I can not hold back. NovaScotian, I must say that I'm very disappointed in you… What kind of parent doesn't teach their kid how to properly eat spaghetti? :p

i love you guys

Sensibilities
 

And you might offend others. As a Brit I was struck that a poster can talk about 'Britholes' and 'bailing Limeys out in 1944' displaying stupidity AND a scant grasp of history, but it is the next post about George Bush that causes s to hit f. We Mac users who do not live in the USA (which I have visited, like and respect) could perhaps do with moderators being sensitive on our behalf.

JoM

Well.. not all moderators are in the US... well at least one of them is not :)

There are other forms of government and other countries outside the USA?

Huh, I guess you can learn something new every day:eek: :rolleyes:


Well, I guess if that place you call "Europe" has computers we can make an exception.


btw, in case you can't tell I am totally kidding. Maybe I should use /sarcasm tags when being sarcastic since it is hard to tell with just text

This is what the report button is for...

The rich variety of cultures and opinions makes debates here especially interesting and sensible reply posts and/or PMs to the contributor who steppend on you will generally be all it takes to calm things down.

Rob has been pretty clear that the central rule of moderation is to keep the discussion friendly, whatever the subject.

And politeness/absence of insult is a lot easier to handle than intercultural differences and political opinions.
The author of an insulting post will generally admit that it was not nice and try to straighten it out.

I'm really confident this thread will result in an even better moderation than what we're already used to.

When that thread was closed should not indicate which comment caused it to be closed. Sometimes mods have a life too and may not see a thread until well past the offensive parts were posted. I don't get the sense that there is any US-centrism here.

MacOSXHints -- a community enriched by our differing backgrounds
 

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I would have to agree with Carlos. Mind you, we’re all formed by our particular backgrounds; that is part of who we are. And, sure, most members and mods are American and that influences the tone, language of references seen in the Forum. But I do sense that the admins/mods make a particular effort to be balanced in regards to insisting on cultural respect.

And I whole-heartedly agree with Voldenuit. Our different backgrounds certainly enriches discussions here, time and again. Nova Scotian’s wonderful spaghetti story (post 52) is a modest example of that.

In particular I find the mozaic of our backgrouds worthwhile when we’re discussing issues that touch on technological/political/social aspects. More than once I have experienced eye-opening discussions and have changed my opinions as a result of what I’ve read.

And I’m sure that I am not the only one.


Best regards,
ArcticStones

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