The end of local chat boards?

[John Wright]

I’m sorry if some posters who have had posting rights suspended ( by me or any other moderator ) feel hard done by.

im more than happy to stand down. I’d welcome new moderators.

I can honestly say there are no favourites, who get better or more favourable treatment. New comers aren’t  treated any differently to those who’ve been here 18 years.

Apart from one or two who post under their own names or who I’ve met, over the years, I’ve no more idea of who posters are than anyone else. Possibly less. 

Over the years moderators have been accused of being a political cabal influencing content on here, a group of close friends, useless. We aren’t any of those.

From a moderating point of view it’s posters who have little self control, no filters, and  who don’t take hints or requests to stop or tone things down, who cause headaches.

For all sorts of reasons we are mainly reactive rather than proactive. In other words before an intervention there has to be a report or complaint. And, yes, some of those are too sensitive, and are ignored.

I know when I last properly banned someone. They were full of self-righteous indignation that their post had been hidden because we were investigating something. They reposted it twice, increasingly intemperately, before being put on moderator preview. I then offered a way out. I received several very abusive PM’s, full of conspiracy theory stuff about moderator friendships, preferences, unfairness.

In the last 24 hours the mods have banned 3 new posters who were spamming with offers of meds, fake currency or documents, etc. we do that every day. You’d not like it if there was more spam and dross visible than real posts.

There we go. Someone start a search for new moderators thread.

[offshoremanxman]

6 hours ago, The Bastard said:

At the end of the day, someone pays for the hosting, the domain registration, and the legal consultations and they can pretty much do what they want with their site.

At the end of the day if they were that bothered why not just pay for a subscription. Someone moaning that a free forum that they contribute nothing to either intellectually or financially has mods who sometimes ban posters so they can’t say what they want while contributing nothing whatsoever to the platform. 

Edited November 14, 2022 by offshoremanxman

[John Wright]

11 hours ago, The Voice of Reason said:

John I must disagree about moderatingly lightly.  I have been on here for many years. I got a ban ( albeit for a small period) from you for being “cheeky” to a moderator. This was when I suggested that that the trans issue was attracting more attention than Brexit on these forums ( a small bit of banter I was having with PK.)

My comments were never directed at you but even if they could be interpreted as having being , certainly not you as a moderator. Possibly as a normal member. Did seem an abuse of your powers but hey ho.

Maybe I was unaware of the code that “ get a room” means terminate your exchanges

You clearly knew what the get a room comment meant. You’d been asked, along with another poster, to stop a tit for tat turn of the screw escalating exchange that had gone on for some time, and many posts.

You then posted in response challenging because posters in the trans thread were being allowed to post without moderation.

You may not like some of the things posted in the trans thread. But there hadn’t been a complaint and there wasn’t the same tit for tat going on.

Most posters on here seem to occupy a different political and philosophical space to my own. But that doesn’t influence my moderating. 

Moderating isn’t about stifling debate between posters with different opinions. It’s about facilitating it in a reasonable manner.

Im sure you won’t agree, but someone has to do it and the rules are that when they make a decision it’s final.

If moderation wasn’t light do you think this thread would survive?

 

[TheTeapot]

3 months my last one. 

Bizarre.

 

[John Wright]

11 minutes ago, TheTeapot said:

3 months my last one. 

Bizarre.

 

After a day of swear words from you across multiple posts. They attracted 3 reports.

Suspensions escalate with every suspension, on the basis the last one can’t have been long enough as it didn’t work, poster didn’t learn.

That was your 13th. Bizarre. Apparently some posters never learn.

[BriT]

9 hours ago, Omobono said:

Manx Forums is an excellent way of getting ones point across , and in this day and age  of a faceless and often clueless government   it has been a major   indicator of public opinion ,  I know of several MHK's and civil servants who keenly follow the forums , because they no longer trust the propaganda   that continues to  be  pushed out by government

Oh come on seriously? Civil servants and MHKs look to here because they don’t trust government propaganda? That’s complete over significance. The only reason this thread has been started is that a poster who has proven to be a serial pest, and who has probably been banned before, doesn’t like the fact that they’ve likely been warned to stop continually revving people up with their constant goading and aggressive posts. 

[John Wright]

2 minutes ago, BriT said:

Oh come on seriously? Civil servants and MHKs look to here because they don’t trust government propaganda? That’s complete over significance. The only reason this thread has been started is that a poster who has proven to be a serial pest, and who has probably been banned before, doesn’t like the fact that they’ve likely been warned to stop continually revving people up with their constant goading and aggressive posts. 

Inaccurate speculation never helps your case

[The Voice of Reason]

44 minutes ago, John Wright said:

You clearly knew what the get a room comment meant. 

 

Actually I didn’t. I thought it was a light hearted comment made in jest (as it usually is)

[0bserver]

1 hour ago, John Wright said:

offers of meds, fake currency or documents, etc. we do that every day. You’d not like it if there was more spam and dross visible than real posts

I'm not sure! Have you seen the price of a new passport these days?

[The Voice of Reason]

1 hour ago, John Wright said:

 

You then posted in response challenging because posters in the trans thread were being allowed to post without moderation.

That’s certainly not true. I never mentioned moderation in my comments. I just made the point that PK and myself were called to account for our Brexit spat when the posts re the trans issue were much more voluminous and  much more contentious ( sometimes to the point of being nasty). There was no challenge just an observation. As to the suggestion that my observation was a result of not liking the content of the trans thread that is frankly ridiculous.

Anyway I along with others are grateful for the unpaid job you do. Moderation is certainly needed.

But you must accept that inevitably, as with all things and as with everyone else you will occasionally get things wrong. There’s no harm in acknowledging when that happens.

Edited November 14, 2022 by The Voice of Reason
To make my point more clear

[lethargy]

All those whinging about being on the receiving end of a ban/time out give me a strong 'kicking off at bouncers after they've chucked you out' vibe.

[The Voice of Reason]

1 minute ago, lethargy said:

All those whinging about being on the receiving end of a ban/time out give me a strong 'kicking off at bouncers after they've chucked you out' vibe.

Not a bad analogy

Imagine innocently chatting at the bar with someone ( a stranger perhaps) about some subject or other and getting picked up by some burly door guard and thrown out into the street.

Would you not have a right to feel a little aggrieved?

(Obviously a different matter if you were misbehaving)

[slinkydevil]

5 minutes ago, The Voice of Reason said:

Would you not have a right to feel a little aggrieved?

 

Nah, life's too short.

[HeliX]

14 hours ago, NoTailT said:

I laughed at your tweet earlier about it and I'm laughing at your post now.

It's a fad. Twitter will settle down, Mastodon will get worse.

Doubt it'll get worse, but it's certainly not a like for like replacement. I've been using it for a while for job stuff, where the federated nature is actually pretty good - you can "exist" primarily on something where everyone else is there for the same reason, and then dip in and out of the global stuff. It's pretty cool technology.

Twitter is likely to continue to get worse though. It's not so much a rudderless ship at this point as a ship where the rudder is a fucking lunatic.

[HeliX]

I've been a prat on this forum for 13 years and, to the best of my knowledge, have never received a warning/ban.

Must be that favouritism people are talking about. It's understandable - I'm pretty great.