It's disappointing to me when a moderator chooses to lock a thread experiencing temporary degeneration due to a minority of participants- locking a thread rather than cleaning up a mostly productive discussion using other tools of the trade.
S.A.M.'s News From Gaza (http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=77263) was the most recent example of a thread that had unusual momentum, but was apparently locked by spidergoat because of a few thoughtless posts from the usual suspects.

There is unique value to me in a thread containing an unique density of thoughtful investment in an important topic, by members with a broad variety of opinions. Locking such significant threads on the appearance of a few tasteless posts sets an exploitable precedent: It leaves an unfortunate opportunity for the unscrupulous to stifle a particular discussion by thoughtlessly pissing on it. Such a precedent has the opposite effect of judicious moderating.

Reflexively locking significant threads also leaves the impression of a lazy indifference on the part of a moderator, who may prefer a click of the mouse to actually collecting the trash- Tossing Baby out with the bathwater. Moderating is an obviously time-consuming and mostly thankless task, and I'm ashamed for not thanking moderators more, and more often for their necessary and definitive policing. At the same time, I that if a mod is ever not feeling up to the task (spidergoat) it's better to just take a little breather.

Pondering my own suggestion, I'm much inclined to take a breather myself. So I'm directing my discussions elsewhere. I do not mean this as any sort of self-important protest, or assumption that my own absence will be lamented. It's just an opportunity for channeling my disappointment at this interruption into explorations I've long neglected elsewhere. It's a great big growing cyber-world, and it seems I just needed a little jolt to start a new journey. I am posting this feedback just as constructive criticism of the overall fabulous job all of the moderators are doing around here.

Have moderators elswhere innovated and encouraged environments more conducive to continuity in comparitively-intense discussions such as Sam's News From Gaza? I really don't know- and I wonder. So, I'm devoting most of my discussion-board time to exploring for the near future. Because my late-Winter hibernation is almost over, and the coming seasons IRL take up a lot more of my time, it's the best time for me to take the opportunity now to shop around. I hope I come back someday to find SF more active and diverse than ever.

No goodbyes, just good wishes.

hypewaders, you can't fight Gods unless you have support of other Gods. So before you declare spidergoat unworthy...get some support from other moderators.

http://www.dkimages.com/discover/previews/893/45044939.JPG

I felt that trying to evaluate each post would be unfair. Sometimes it's best to let it die. There will be other threads, many, many of them. I'm not making a judgment that the thread was bad, I think all in all, it was very successful. Someone with more patience than me may decide to revive it. In nature, a forest fire or extinction can be an opportunity for new growth and greater diversity.

I'm not trying to make a policy of confining a certain member to a certain thread, or, by some interpretations- censoring a topic. It was an experiment.

Pondering my own suggestion, I'm much inclined to take a breather myself. So I'm directing my discussions elsewhere. I do not mean this as any sort of self-important protest, or assumption that my own absence will be lamented. It's just an opportunity for channeling my disappointment at this interruption into explorations I've long neglected elsewhere. It's a great big growing cyber-world, and it seems I just needed a little jolt to start a new journey. I am posting this feedback just as constructive criticism of the overall fabulous job all of the moderators are doing around here.



NOOOOO!:bawl:

its open and i apologize on behalf of dumbfucksci

/smirk

dumbfucksci: "dont let the door hit you on the way out"

dumbfucksci: "dont let the door hit you on the way out"

redarmy11 used to say that except he said "arse" instead of "you"

Whatever happened to Redarmy11?

Whatever happened to Redarmy11?

dead

Hype:

I would suggest you're being, at least in part, unfair:


At the same time, I that if a mod is ever not feeling up to the task (spidergoat) it's better to just take a little breather.

One part of me wants to respond bitterly that if our members aren't up to the task of civility, perhaps they should take a break. I'll leave it at that, though, because what is more important is the counterpoint of what that lack among the membership brings.

Perhaps you recall the time when we could insult the hell out of each other and were left to settle our differences. Generally, the moderation or administration only got involved if those disputes started killing multiple discussions, or if the fight got too heated and involved threats or specifically unacceptable slurs and denigration.

Somewhere along the road, we stopped doing that. I confess it occurred during my hiatus, so I'm unable to describe the process. But when I returned the site was considerably more tolerant of behavior it had not previously accepted, and more willing to restrict what we had formerly allowed and even endorsed. Where members had, in times past, ended up chasing irrational and disingenuous posters away, the official rule seems to have become that those who have no rational or honest argument are entitled to muck up whatever discussion they want, and ought to be protected against the "insult" inherent in a proper description of their behavior.

The result is that moderators now experience a fairly steady stream of complaints ranging from the occasional and legitimate to the constant and whining. The question arises, what do we do with all of this?

Perhaps you recall recent dissatisfaction among the membership about the idea of blocking together propaganda topics of common theme. When it's people who want to pick on Obama, they're upset. When it's S.A.M. and issues related to Palestine ... where was the outrage?

The topic was closed, the membership complained, and a moderator performed the necessary edits, drastically reducing the size of the discussion. I don't recall how much time was given to that effort.

I would ask you to consider another recent situation in which a moderator attempted to do something more than just close a topic or redirect it to the Cesspool. A curious discussion of divorce had sprung up, and eventually a personal rivalry became the focus of the discussion. The moderator closed the topic for cleaning and split the discussion into three separate threads. There was the original discussion, a legitimate splinter arising from a cheap jab at Islam, and a member-specific complaint thread pertaining to the rivalry that became the chief digression. The moderator split out the topics, even split individual posts so that their relevant sections could be placed accordingly. Mod notes were written explaining the threads and edited posts. And, I'm sad to report, I believe one segment of one post was lost entirely. I can no longer state that as a definitive fact because there was so much information being moved around that I simply don't recall that detail.

The entire process took at least three and a half hours, in part because the moderator was also dealing with incoming complaints and inquiries pertaining to the situation. There were, of course, a few personal obligations the moderator paused to accommodate as well, and when it comes to things like feeding our children, we can only beg the membership's forgiveness for our insensitivity to the site's needs.

But that last is sort of the crux of the matter. I did what I did with that issue because I wanted to see what was involved and what happened when a problem in a discussion received more attention than a simple closure of the thread.

Three and a half hours, give or take. The complaint issue continued for a week and eventually spilled out into other discussions around the board, including, if I recall correctly, a complaint thread about blocking common themes into a common thread. Or, at least, one of the derivative complaints stemming from that issue.

Now, I'm in a fairly unique position among my fellows, as I understand it. Generally speaking, I have three and a half hours to spare. And I have the time to give to repeated complaints that persist for a week while generally ignoring the responses they get from moderators and the administration. I have the time to give greater attention to incoherent and unsubstantiated accusations. And apparently, that's not enough. It seems we're expected, when someone lays down a general and angry accusation, to go fishing through the site archives in order to figure out what that dissatisfied member is complaining about. So that three and a half hours, and that week of complaint and response with one disgruntled member (not to mention repeated complaints from another member who was upset about something I did during that whole debacle) still aren't enough.

And this is just one situation. One topic. One relatively minor disaster.

My point, good sir, is that I'm in a fairly unique position because I have the time to try certain measures. My fellows may not. Some of them have jobs. Some of them are students. Some of them have children and a job. Some of them have spouses or partners to give attention to. Me? I have my daughter, regular time without specific parental responsibilities, and my general state of mind to contend with. All in all, when we consider those obligations specifically in terms of time resources, it is true that I have a lot more time on my hands than most of my fellows.

And even that time isn't enough to satisfy the needs of the membership.

Life goes on. We'll do our best. And I'm sorry if some days that "best" isn't as much as it was the day before. And, to be honest, there's nothing we can do when our best isn't enough to satisfy the membership. Because we'll never make you all happy at the same time. And, well, that part you understand; my point isn't to patronize.

I just want to remind you that there are reasons why the moderators might choose what seems the expedient or convenient method or "solution". And there are reasons why they have the administration's support in this. As I'm sure you're aware, neither the former nor present administration of this site has been prone to deeply involving itself in the petty disputes of the membership. It has long been my understanding that members were expected to be smart enough to work those things out between themselves, and that moderators should only get involved when they must.

So what constitutes that "must"? Evolving standards have given necessity greater prominence. Increasing sensitivity has demanded greater involvement.

And so we involve ourselves more frequently, to e'er increasing dissatisfaction among the membership. And yet the membership seems—as a general theme—to consider its responsibilities to be diminishing. Poor citation, rampant illogic and propaganda; the place sounds more and more each day like juvenile social-networking with semi-literate ejaculations of righteous egotism. And for all we try to mop up the mess, all we seem to do is piss people off.

But, you know ... hell, that's fine. Sciforums, while it plays a part in each of our personal identities, is not worth whining about. I mean, this may be the state of things, and it may well sound ludicrously grim, but this is what we—and I mean all of us, membership, moderation, and administrators alike—have made of it.

The simple fact is that I cannot justly expect my fellows to put in three and a half hours settling one thread, especially if the membership cannot be expected to conduct themselves with even a basic modicum of dignity.

We've had a number of bloc threads on the Middle East before. S.A.M.'s News and One Topic to Rule Them All come to mind. There's the old News From the Colonies thread for the Iraqi and Afghani Bush Adventures. We've tried to bloc the presidential candidate discussions together, and with only limited success. We've a years-old topic in Free Thoughts intended to bloc together random bizarre news (women giving birth to frogs, people grafted to their toilet seats, &c.). There's one in EM&J for the ongoing civil rights struggle of homosexuals. Response has been diverse; people flock to some topics while leaving others aside. We've a long habit of these discussions.

And one thing you can rest assured of is that the closure of a bloc topic does not mean the end of any given discussion. Indeed, with certain topics, such as Israel/Palestine, it is nearly a certainty that a new bloc topic will spring to life in fairly short order.

Sometimes the best thing to do is to put down "Ol' Yeller". I, too, like the idea of continuous discussions like some of our bloc topics have brought over time. There are, in fact, some obvious suggestions I wonder if I'm the only one to think of. (Really, I can't be the only one.) Basic things, like dispense with cutesy titles like S.A.M.'s News. While they might have some sort of market attraction, I already know the next edition of The Gay Fray, when it's finally time to shut down the first one, will be called The Gay Fray v.2. What are we on with The Picture Thread? Mark IV? I would suggest the next Israel/Palestine thread should be called Israel/Palestine v.3, and the first post should be from a moderator, and contain links to One Thread to Rule Them All and S.A.M.'s News.

At any rate, the basic points, then, are that some topics are simply going to die, and they can always be replaced. Additionally, I'm not sure it's fair to place certain demands on volunteer moderators. Not all of them have the time I do, and I already know I'm not going to make a habit out of the routine I tried with that divorce thread. We do need the membership to pick up some of the mess here, or, more specifically, find someplace to shit that isn't all over the carpet. Cleaning up can be difficult enough; being fair while you do so is demonstrably harder. An example is that I'm waiting to see if anyone complains about something you wrote. While I applaud the joke, and understand the difference between that one and the expected comparison, history suggests with little room for doubt that we have among us prominent members who cannot comprehend how the one is not like the other. At the most superficial level, something you wrote needs to be cleaned. Am I being unfair if I don't make the point to the relevant moderator? Maybe. Some would say yes. But, like I said, I see a difference, and hence have no objection. Whether or not I'm correct in that assessment? That is the complicated question.

Lastly, I believe you are aware of the high esteem in which I hold you. Your considerations have given me an excellent springboard from which to leap into these messy issues, and I thank you. It is not, by any means, that I wish to scold, but, rather, you've put before me an opportunity to remind the community at large of two important things. First, your moderators do put thought into how they go about their duties. Also, it is important to reiterate that these situations are not simple. I am confident, good sir, that you are well aware of what happens when authority in any social structure regards the intricate interpersonal dynamics of the community simplistically. History is rife with examples, and while that might seem somewhat melodramatic, I would posit that the notion is still valid here at Sciforums.

I can only wish you the best.

For the record it took me 2 hours to delete all the posts, now i was fairly indiscriminate unlike tiassa who was happy to split indervidual posts. I DONT HAVE THE TIME TO DO THAT. If i invested that kind of time and effort PB would start complaining im neglecting the house and my studies.

I dont critise spider for just closing the thread, he didnt have the time that i felt i did. Still it took me ALOT longer than i thought and that was just with inline deletion.

I WONT be doing it again, the next time the thread disintergrates to that level the whole thing will just be locked and sunk because other things in my life have to come first

I am taking hype's advice and quit moderating. I stopped several days ago, and it's quite liberating. I think the methods for resolving disputes that exist in the real world do not work here. We only have tools of words, and they depend on how well you can use them, and how well you are able to interpret the mind of someone else through them. Problems are inevitable, but not enough of a reason to stop the enterprise entirely. In spite of the difficulties, there must be something rewarding about this or we wouldn't be here.

How old is Azguard?

How old is Azguard?

lol

How old is Azguard?

572 of your Earth years.

572 of your Earth years.

ahhhhhhhhhh that would explain the strange spelling of his words :D

I .....


you, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar

/kowtow

hypewaders, ....


wazzup, biaatch?

I just read Tiassa's (#10) post (http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1783915&postcount=10), and took it to heart.

:huh:

Then, Asguard (#11) (asguardhttp://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1783925&postcount=11) mentioned his putting in the above-call-of-duty cleanup effort Tiassa spoke of.

Then I got to spidergoat's (#12) (http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1783954&postcount=12) post ...

:eek:

Which has completed my process of realizing that I've been a complete arsehole.

I was entirely out of line to suggest that spidergoat "take a breather" as a moderator.

I'm really sorry for being a jerk, spidergoat- You certainly did a much better job picking up after us around here than I have ever found the time or inclination to do. All the mods deserve our thanks, encouragement (and no abuse) for their volunteer efforts at improving the atmosphere and tenor of SF discussions.

spidergoat: "In spite of the difficulties, there must be something rewarding about this or we wouldn't be here."

Yes, indeed. I spent a few huffy days -not so much just because of the Sam's News threadlock, but more in general pissiness over the human condition- out in the wilderness, lurking around all the likely boards I could find, looking for the most intelligent community of this kind.

So far as I can tell, it's still right here. :cheers:

crap
focus, hype
initial premises are still valid

Your haikus would be better if they meant something. Like:

e to the i pi
Add one for you to get zero
Is that weird or what?

spidergoat: "In spite of the difficulties, there must be something rewarding about this or we wouldn't be here."

Yes, indeed. I spent a few huffy days -not so much just because of the Sam's News threadlock, but more in general pissiness over the human condition- out in the wilderness, lurking around all the likely boards I could find, looking for the most intelligent community of this kind.

So far as I can tell, it's still right here. :cheers:

Just so you know, I understand where spidey is coming from and never take offence at being moderated by him. If you pay a little bit of attention to him, you'll see what I mean.:p

...

I was entirely out of line to suggest that spidergoat "take a breather" as a moderator.

It's quite alright, I wasn't planning on moderating forever. Your suggestion coincided with some of my own reasons too. At first, I only interpreted it as- don't make hasty decisions, but the idea of taking a breather is appealing. It's probably good for the forums to have some staff turnaround once in a while. Dare I say term limits? :wave:

Dare I say term limits?

Actually, I think this is a really good idea.