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Hi
Can someone try (as I dont have high enough priveledges to do it) merge thread numbers 36194 and 36194
thank you
Jason
Ok, totally confusing.
What on earth is any of that about?
Splitting threads – how did you even do that? I was told it’s not possible anymore. (Which is annoying, occasionally a thread needs to be split)
We got two threads, one that makes no sense at all and one that is interesting but lacks fundation of thought and hence is also confusing.
Both have the same title and you cited identical numbers.
I have no idea how to merge that, what belongs where, which post follows which because it’s too discombobulated to make any sense.
Maybe I just need more coffee…:hattip:
Ok, according to Alex’ request I moved the nonsensical one to the attic.
Now we need a way to make the other one cohesive.
OK, Deletion of a thread / moving it completely isnt what I was after but it has a partial result – thankyou.
As to what it is about, I will explain more in due time. I am afraid that at the moment we aren’t there yet until I have spoken with Arjun, Bob et al
Jason, please don’t be splitting threads and such things without talking to Christine or me.
Moderation may look like it is simply choosing things from a dropdown, but it is often complicated and a dance on the tightrope of diplomacy and whatever the community ends up seeing is very important, especially now.
We are in a fragile position still, and it is very important that every thread every visitor sees helps them in some way.
More importantly, I am very happy indeed to see you here and am looking forward to lots of brilliant posts. We need someone with your skills here! :hattip:
Dominique,
With the greatest of respect, and I truly do have a great deal of respect for you, I know what I am doing, my actions are sound and I am 99.9999999999999999% (none of us can ever be 100% sure) correct in my actions.
What follows may be perceived as curt but I don’t beat around the bush and would rather say and deal with potential issues while they are tiny therefore avoiding long term problems. I do not apologise for my directness, it is one of my huge faults but I can live with it!
I’ve been asked to run the search related forums and on that basis I will run them as I see fit. I will not ask for permission or clarification from you or anyone else but I will run them in a way that delivers benefit of both the community and the CAP organisation.
If the CAP org decides I am not acting in their interests they can ask me to step down, of which I will do, but until that time, or when / if I decide I can’t be “arsed” with it any more I will continue to make decisions in my forums when, in my opinion, I am the right person to make those decisions whether that be by having greater experience, knowledge or simply being in the right time zone, or right / wrong place at the right time.
I don’t welcome the tone of your post above to me, specifically having to go to you / Christine for clarification and authorisation to enable anything, especially so when you have already posted in this thread and your response reads as a reply to mine saying that I wasn’t over the moon that you didn’t do as I had asked in the forums I am responsible for. I strive for excellence and I expect excellence from those around me.
I know these CAP forums aren’t considered a commercial business in the traditional sense of the words but therein lies the problem. These forums should be considered as such and in fact, within law, they are. Legal ramifications can occur if process and risk management is not undertaken.
Bottom line is simple. I know few things in life but the things I do know are simple to explain
1. How to be a great dad
2. How to game the search engines
3. Internet and gaming law
4. Business.other than those 4 things above I can promise you I am pretty damn ignorant.
Thanks and kind regards
Jason
@JasonD 204458 wrote:
Dominique,
With the greatest of respect, and I truly do have a great deal of respect for you, [/quote]
Ditto
@JasonD 204458 wrote:
What follows may be perceived as curt but I don’t beat around the bush and would rather say and deal with potential issues while they are tiny therefore avoiding long term problems. I do not apologise for my directness, it is one of my huge faults but I can live with it![/quote]
I am rather blunt myself. If everyone in the world was blunt, there would be a lot less misunderstandings and trouble, IMO.
@JasonD 204458 wrote:
I don’t welcome the tone of your post above to me, specifically having to go to you / Christine for clarification and authorisation to enable anything, especially so when you have already posted in this thread and your response reads as a reply to mine saying that I wasn’t over the moon that you didn’t do as I had asked in the forums I am responsible for. I strive for excellence and I expect excellence from those around me. [/quote]
From a moderator’s perspective, you screwed up last night. You left two threads for all to see, one that has a couple of interesting posts but beyond that is gibberish for our members, and one with pure gibberish. You are right, this is a business, and one in trouble at that. Everything depends on the members being happy and prolific, and on them finding something that helps them in every post they read, every day. You left two mutilated, nonsensical posts behind yesterday.
@JasonD 204458 wrote:
I know these CAP forums aren’t considered a commercial business in the traditional sense of the words but therein lies the problem. These forums should be considered as such and in fact, within law, they are. Legal ramifications can occur if process and risk management is not undertaken.[/quote]
They are definitely commercial. Risk management is not my business. A well run message board is. If you need to discuss legal issues and whatnot with admin, then do so. It has nothing to do with splitting threads or editing them. THAT however IS my business as senior moderator of 8 years standing.
@JasonD 204458 wrote:
Bottom line is simple. I know few things in life but the things I do know are simple to explain
1. How to be a great dad
2. How to game the search engines
3. Internet and gaming law
4. Business.other than those 4 things above I can promise you I am pretty damn ignorant.
Thanks and kind regards
Jason
I know nothing about #1, too little about #2, not enough about #3 and a whole lot about #4.
And with 7 message boards of my own and after 8 years of moderating this one I know a whole lot about how message boards work.As father, seo, legal wiz and business person no one has any interest in being consulted by you on anything.
However, as message board moderator, I have an interest in being consulted before you split threads, delete ANYTHING but your own post, close threads and all the related functions.
We are treading on thin ice here at CAP, and I am a volunteer. I have agreed to help the guys from CAP out, and I will continue to do so as long as basic message board rules are kept. And you don’t know yet what they are. No one acts on their own here when it comes to moderation, and for good reason.
So I hope we can each contribute what we know about – and then you will have an excellent message board.
@JasonD 204452 wrote:
OK, Deletion of a thread / moving it completely isnt what I was after but it has a partial result – thankyou.
Threads are archived at the request of the author – ONLY. If that is an issue at any time for whatever reason, we all consult with admin.
I think you took the way Dom said to speak to one of us wrong Jason it is not permission but more for advise on what should be done, we both have many years under our belt with running forums so we would be able to answer on the how to handle something. In this case I have to agree the thread splitting only caused mass confusion, and this forum right now don’t need that for sure
If you want I can give you my cell # just in case you would ever need me and I am not around.. My email addy is [email protected] I get emails directly to my blackberry.Thankyou both for your replies and my apologies for the delay in responding.
Friday was a very very busy day for me, as is this week as a few people are flying in from around the globe for meetings with me. As for weekends, I do my utmost to spend that time with my kids!
I will respond inline to your comments Dominque ( I have snipped some of your comments down the meat so that we can get to the meat) and then give a small summary at the end.
Please read my views, as I have read yours, with a smile on your face and remember tact isn’t an asset of mine and bluntness is something we both share
Dominique;204491 wrote:From a moderator’s perspective, you screwed up last night. You left two threads for all to see, one that has a couple of interesting posts but beyond that is gibberish for our members, and one with pure gibberish.I disagree. There was an admin cock up not a moderation cock up. I will come to the reasons for the moderation by me, when I can. But the way I handled the situation, including cutting and chopping threads would have worked perfectly if 1 of 2 situations would have happened.
#1. I had the ability to merge threads – It was showing as I did have this ability which is why I started by splitting threads to remerge distinct and seperate discussions after the split. It seemed I was unable which led to the initial request in here for Admin support.
#2. If Admins / someone with the ability to merge the threads, had indeed merged them then all would be sweetness and light right now. Instead of merging you deleted, which can then cause a worse history as there would be no public viewable backup of discussion.
Quote:You are right, this is a business, and one in trouble at that. Everything depends on the members being happy and prolific, and on them finding something that helps them in every post they read, every day.I am glad we agree
Quote:You left two mutilated, nonsensical posts behind yesterday.I refer to my point above, but will add that using words like mutilated is a touch over dramatic!!
Quote:Risk management is not my business. A well run message board is.A well run message board needs to manage risk. Online a message board is one of the most litigous prone type of sites there are and having moderators in place makes it more so if those moderators do not do their job.
Not having moderators is a defence. Having moderators shows that you are aware of risk and therefore moderators ignoring risk shows guilt.
With the greatest of respect, your statement above is an oxymoron. You can NOT have a well run message board without managing risk and I suspect you have been managing risk without realising it for many years.
Quote:If you need to discuss legal issues and whatnot with admin, then do so.I will and am
Quote:It has nothing to do with splitting threads or editing them.Again, with the greatest of respect – that’s crap! You are unable to decide what is and isn’t a legal issue until I have told you what occured and the risks inherent with that. I have yet to tell you so you can not say whether it is “moderation” or not.
Quote:THAT however IS my business as senior moderator of 8 years standing.I personally hate it when someone uses the age old trick of stating how long they have been doing something. I personally believe in quality over quantity as you may simply have 8 years experience of being a bad moderator. I am sure that isn’t the case though.
If time does matter to you I should let you know that I moderated and operated my 1st “forum” before the word forum was used in this context. It was known as a BBS back then in the late 80s and required people to dial in to my systems, log in and exchange messages in a threaded “forum” style.
Since then I was at the launch of forums within the WWW running a forum on a contentious subject matter that was illegal in many parts of the world (much like Gaming / Gambling is today in fact) generating just shy of 1Million uniques per day. That was in the late 90’s heading into the Noughties, so if experience does matter I can safely say I have around 20 years experience of running forum style communities, but as I said above, time doesn’t mean a thing, it might mean I have 20 odd years experience of being a bad mod!
Quote:And with 7 message boards of my own and after 8 years of moderating this one I know a whole lot about how message boards work.Yup, but those 7 boards being run for 8 years may have all been run badly.
Quote:As father, seo, legal wiz and business person no one has any interest in being consulted by you on anything.I find that statement simply rude – if it is how you feel then so be it but I ask 2 things. Don’t speak for others only yourself and also please be aware of the difference between bluntness and rudeness. If you can’t be civil then please don’t bother
Quote:However, as message board moderator, I have an interest in being consulted before you split threads, delete ANYTHING but your own post, close threads and all the related functions.I have been asked to run the search forums by the site owners. On that basis, and until the site owners tell me differently and/or I can not be bothered anymore I will continue to run them as I see fit. I will not defer or consult with you for something I believe is perfectly reasonable for me to make a decision on.
Quote:We are treading on thin ice here at CAP, and I am a volunteer.Agreed and so am I
Quote:I have agreed to help the guys from CAP out,As have I
Quote:and I will continue to do so as long as basic message board rules are kept. And you don’t know yet what they are.Please do not presume, of what and what not, I am ignorant or otherwise of.
Quote:No one acts on their own here when it comes to moderation, and for good reason.I stand by my decision to moderate in the way I did and defer that the reason for the mess was yours by deleting and not merging the thread as I requested. I further put forward my view I made the right decision. I am afraid you are not availed of all the facts but if you were you may well agree with me. I am afraid I can’t avail you o those facts yet.
Quote:So I hope we can each contribute what we know about – and then you will have an excellent message board.I am sure that in our own personal areas of expertise we can add tremendous value to the community but I am also sure that the only thing mutual back slapping delivers is a sore back for all!
I will summarise this discussion by making 4 points.
- I stand by my decisions to deal with a legal threat, at the time I was here in the way I did.
- I believe that when I make a request for someone to undertake an action on my behalf, when I do not have high enough priveledges to undertake it, that they either do as I ask, or contact me urgently to discuss and ask why.
- I do not expect something other than which I have asked for to be undertaken. That is quite simply – slapdash!
- Dominque – You’re a huge asset to this community but you need to stop thinking of yourself as queen bee. If you don’t think in that manner then please change the wording of how you communicate as calling yourself a senior mod with 8 years experience simply shouts “arrogance and conseit”
I put my kids to bed at about 7pm. Anyone can call after 8pm (my personal mobile number is available in this forum) and between 10pm UK time if they ever wish to discuss matters in the evening.
thanks and kind regards to you all
Jason
@JasonD 204615 wrote:
Thankyou both for your replies and my apologies for the delay in responding.
Friday was a very very busy day for me, as is this week as a few people are flying in from around the globe for meetings with me. As for weekends, I do my utmost to spend that time with my kids!
I will respond inline to your comments Dominque ( I have snipped some of your comments down the meat so that we can get to the meat) and then give a small summary at the end.
Please read my views, as I have read yours, with a smile on your face and remember tact isn’t an asset of mine and bluntness is something we both share
I disagree. There was an admin cock up not a moderation cock up. I will come to the reasons for the moderation by me, when I can. But the way I handled the situation, including cutting and chopping threads would have worked perfectly if 1 of 2 situations would have happened.
#1. I had the ability to merge threads – It was showing as I did have this ability which is why I started by splitting threads to remerge distinct and seperate discussions after the split. It seemed I was unable which led to the initial request in here for Admin support.
#2. If Admins / someone with the ability to merge the threads, had indeed merged them then all would be sweetness and light right now. Instead of merging you deleted, which can then cause a worse history as there would be no public viewable backup of discussion.
I am glad we agree
I refer to my point above, but will add that using words like mutilated is a touch over dramatic!!
A well run message board needs to manage risk. Online a message board is one of the most litigous prone type of sites there are and having moderators in place makes it more so if those moderators do not do their job.
Not having moderators is a defence. Having moderators shows that you are aware of risk and therefore moderators ignoring risk shows guilt.
With the greatest of respect, your statement above is an oxymoron. You can NOT have a well run message board without managing risk and I suspect you have been managing risk without realising it for many years.
I will and am
Again, with the greatest of respect – that’s crap! You are unable to decide what is and isn’t a legal issue until I have told you what occured and the risks inherent with that. I have yet to tell you so you can not say whether it is “moderation” or not.
I personally hate it when someone uses the age old trick of stating how long they have been doing something. I personally believe in quality over quantity as you may simply have 8 years experience of being a bad moderator. I am sure that isn’t the case though.
If time does matter to you I should let you know that I moderated and operated my 1st “forum” before the word forum was used in this context. It was known as a BBS back then in the late 80s and required people to dial in to my systems, log in and exchange messages in a threaded “forum” style.
Since then I was at the launch of forums within the WWW running a forum on a contentious subject matter that was illegal in many parts of the world (much like Gaming / Gambling is today in fact) generating just shy of 1Million uniques per day. That was in the late 90’s heading into the Noughties, so if experience does matter I can safely say I have around 20 years experience of running forum style communities, but as I said above, time doesn’t mean a thing, it might mean I have 20 odd years experience of being a bad mod!
Yup, but those 7 boards being run for 8 years may have all been run badly.
I find that statement simply rude – if it is how you feel then so be it but I ask 2 things. Don’t speak for others only yourself and also please be aware of the difference between bluntness and rudeness. If you can’t be civil then please don’t bother
I have been asked to run the search forums by the site owners. On that basis, and until the site owners tell me differently and/or I can not be bothered anymore I will continue to run them as I see fit. I will not defer or consult with you for something I believe is perfectly reasonable for me to make a decision on.
Agreed and so am I
As have I
Please do not presume, of what and what not, I am ignorant or otherwise of.
I stand by my decision to moderate in the way I did and defer that the reason for the mess was yours by deleting and not merging the thread as I requested. I further put forward my view I made the right decision. I am afraid you are not availed of all the facts but if you were you may well agree with me. I am afraid I can’t avail you o those facts yet.
I am sure that in our own personal areas of expertise we can add tremendous value to the community but I am also sure that the only thing mutual back slapping delivers is a sore back for all!
I will summarise this discussion by making 4 points.
- I stand by my decisions to deal with a legal threat, at the time I was here in the way I did.
- I believe that when I make a request for someone to undertake an action on my behalf, when I do not have high enough priveledges to undertake it, that they either do as I ask, or contact me urgently to discuss and ask why.
- I do not expect something other than which I have asked for to be undertaken. That is quite simply – slapdash!
- Dominque – You’re a huge asset to this community but you need to stop thinking of yourself as queen bee. If you don’t think in that manner then please change the wording of how you communicate as calling yourself a senior mod with 8 years experience simply shouts “arrogance and conseit”
I put my kids to bed at about 7pm. Anyone can call after 8pm (my personal mobile number is available in this forum) and between 10pm UK time if they ever wish to discuss matters in the evening.
thanks and kind regards to you all
Jason
Admin, you need to explain here.
If the way CAP is moderated has changed, I expect to be notified.
Oh come on Dominique, have a discussion not a complaint to the admins!!
You started the complaint about how I acted, I responded, we entered into open and frank discussion and yet it reads (and I could well be wrong) that you are crying off to the bosses!
I am sure I have read it wrong though as one huge problem with text based communications is that emotion can’t always be read or implied, although I can’t see how I could misinterpret your last post as it was sooooooo short.
Although it appears you disagree with me (as your posts seem so short when you post in response to mine I am unsure) and I won’t change my views on the facts, I do wish to work with everyone here to deliver the benefits we all know the community can deliver to itself.
So Dominique, as an olive branch to you, do you want to start the discussion again?
The organizational structure here is that there are two supermods with supermod capabilities enabled who oversee all the forums. And the supermods confer with admin about several types of decisions, decisions are made as a group.
Then there are forum mods who have normal mod capabilities enabled and when they wish to make changes that exeed their capabilities they come to a supermod.
These are the checks and balances that were put into place due to someone going berserk with deleting things and banning people and whatnot.
If the organizational structure was changed, I should have been told.
Also, legal issues are matters of policy and I don’t set policy. I just follow it. If I want policy changed, I go to admin.
I was under the impression that I was still supermod and that such things as chopping up posts went through me. (And by the way, re. merging the posts – they still would not have made any sense to readers.)
It sounds like things were not explained to one of us. Hence my request to admin to explain.
And you were not the only sysop with BBs back then.
Dominique;204625 wrote:The organizational structure here is that there are two supermods with supermod capabilities enabled who oversee all the forums. And the supermods confer with admin about several types of decisions, decisions are made as a group.Then there are forum mods who have normal mod capabilities enabled and when they wish to make changes that exeed their capabilities they come to a supermod.
These are the checks and balances that were put into place due to someone going berserk with deleting things and banning people and whatnot.
If the organizational structure was changed, I should have been told.
I presume you are a supermod. If so you and the other supermod (What an awful name by the way – supermod, I have images of Vespa scooters, green macs and the ability to fly through the air with nothing but kryptonite being able to harm you) along with possibly the administrators are devoid in your duties by not going through these processes with me.
The over riding question here is who said the org structure was changed?
Quote:Also, legal issues are matters of policy and I don’t set policy. I just follow it. If I want policy changed, I go to admin.Dont be a follower be a doer and define. Surely any great moderator thinks on their feet and delivers what is best for the community? Going backwards, Ferris Bueller style, doesn’t really work!
Quote:I was under the impression that I was still supermod and that such things as chopping up posts went through me.I refer to my point above.
Quote:(And by the way, re. merging the posts – they still would not have made any sense to readers.)I disagree, but that is a matter of opinion. My opinion on this differs to yours.
Quote:It sounds like things were not explained to one of us. Hence my request to admin to explain.Why don’t you explain, develop, enhance and build your team around you? If you are a SUPER Mod be SUPER. Sometimes a title becomes ordinary and no matter how many supers you see it all becomes matter of fact.
Surely the way to improve the forums that I believe you care about is to help define, help the place be better, help by being amazing. In essence be a Purple Cow as no matter how many brown cows you see they eventually become dull no matter if they are super or not.
Quote:And you were not the only sysop with BBs back then.OK this annoys me. Why are you avoiding important points and simply choosing which parts of a discussion to respond to. On top of that why are the points you choose to respond to got nothing to do with making this place Purple, but have everything to do with competition.
If you being the Queen Bee (using the phrase I used earlier in this thread) or the SUPER Mod matters so much then please ensure that you run this place properly. You’ve clearly been lacking as this thread shows
Having a competition with me doesn’t make this place purple it simply shows that the title matters more than what is best for here.
But most of all, as this thread was obviously becoming “awkward” you dismissed my offer of starting the thread again and literal olive branch. I’ll happily work to help rebuild and deliver to the community that frequents here, now and in the future but I will not be belittled, spoken down to or inferred to be at fault when in fact I am not and you are.
I will finally say that there are currently 3 minutes left before I wont accept a call this evening and no one here has called me. That speaks volumes as simple phone calls (as was had with Alex in the original thread that this thread is about shows) can solve many issues…
