Banana vote on Sadgeezer Censorship issue…

Science Fiction TV Show Guides Forums Discussion Forum Help Banana vote on Sadgeezer Censorship issue…

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  • #39459
    lexxrobotech
    Participant

    To the mods –

    I know the question was put to the moderators and not to me, but I’d like to add my banana to the bunch. I’m involved in moderating a few similar ~international~ message boards and have had experience in exactly this type of dilemma before.

    It’s been my experience that the best way to deal with touchy subjects on public forums is to go the whole nine yards. You either have no censorship whatsoever, or you ban certain touchy topics completely. Otherwise the moderators will tend to almost alwayts offend certain people by playing god when choosing what is and isn’t acceptable.

    Personally I think censorship sucks. If someone doesn’t like what’s being said, then they shouldn’t continue to read it. As Captain Rick Hunter was told by Admiral Gloval, “If you can’t take the heat… get out of the battle.” Then again, not everyone thinks like me, so it’s a case of either having full censorship or none at all.

    My 2 cents. Now if you don’t mind, I’m gonna go back to my mud hut and continue my sad lurking.

    #68196
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Nah, I’m sure the question was put to everyone. It wouldnt have been done in Discussion Forum Help if it wasn’t for everyone to participate in. Course not everybody is a member there yet, have you applied? Has to be validated by Jhevz or another admin, so you won’t gain access immediately…

    Interesting points, and well worth considering, lexxrobotech.

    lexxrobotech wrote:

    It’s been my experience that the best way to deal with touchy subjects on public forums is to go the whole nine yards. You either have no censorship whatsoever, or you ban certain touchy topics completely. Otherwise the moderators will tend to almost alwayts offend certain people by playing god when choosing what is and isn’t acceptable.

    I’m talking very generally here regarding all boards…

    There’s a big risk in appearing arbitrary even when one’s not, so a moderator has to be extra-extra careful with what they say and do — and it requires some impartiality, and extra care to try to be objective (unemotional). As a mod yourself, don’t you feel like there are stricter rules of conduct for you than anyone else? Not only do you have to moderate the board, you have to be extra careful in moderating your own actions. ANd if you make a mistake, and we all do, well people are less likely to forgive a moderator (takes longer to mend those bridges, but reconcilaition is something most mods are good at, since part of being a moderator is acting as an arbitrator in disputes).

    The board is for the members, if the mods/admin are offensive to its clientelle, well, they risk alienating the base, and then losing the members. So, ultimately the mods are accountable to the posters. But if the mods do nothing they also risk the members being offended and leaving… Difficult. Inaction is generally far more pleasant to the mod, so it’s never easy censoring something, and is not usually taken lightly, but for the benefit of the members and the board…

    Sometimes it requires tough choices to try to do what’s best for the majority of the members and the board. They always risk offending some people when they take any action, that’s why a moderator generally has to be so clear about why they felt they needed to do it — honesty, transparency, accountability, diplomacy (same for all really). But there are times when the offence is so obvious that it needs no clarification to the offending member. “if thy member offends, cut it off.” More likely it will have to be explained for others benefit, if a person is offensive much of the time, well it usually needs no explanation.

    Just wanted to mention that while mods have to be careful of what they say, most of the time they’re just acting as regular posters.

    Edit note: Just because someone is sometimes deleted at a board doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re not valued there. The positive contributions outshine the negative ones, and those positive ones will always be appreciated and encouraged, and the negative ones will be discouraged. For me, interacting at the board is a lot like interacting with people in ‘real’ life, I hope that I learn something, and come here to try to improve myself (not always easy…). That requires constructive criticism and feeback, even being censored can be taken positively with the right attitude as long as one is willing to learn something from it (even if it’s not something you wanted to learn). Like a mod, a poster’s primary resposnsibilty at a board is to please others, not him/herself.

    First rule of effective writing: Always be considerate of your audience; try to appeal to them. If they really don’t want to consume your product, well forcing it down their throats is not terribly effective, productive, or nutritious.

    #68202
    nursewhen
    Participant
    lexxrobotech wrote:

    Personally I think censorship sucks. If someone doesn’t like what’s being said, then they shouldn’t continue to read it. As Captain Rick Hunter was told by Admiral Gloval, “If you can’t take the heat… get out of the battle.” Then again, not everyone thinks like me, so it’s a case of either having full censorship or none at all.

    Well I’m all for censorship if it’s done fairly. After all, if you take the no censorship option and we get a troll who spams every single thread, it’s not something that you can just walk away from. Before you know it, the board would be groaning under the weight of pure unadulterated crap and we’ll all be flaming each other.

    With a case like that, then the need for censorship is obvious. Where it gets more difficult is when it drops into the grey areas and it’s the grey areas which are being discussed in the help forum (you don’t have to be a mod to join. I’m not one and never have been).

    #68203
    Anonymous
    Guest

    I’m sure Saddy and the rest would love your input over there, I know I would.

    And don’t get me started on Macross with all the Hunter quotes 😛
    —————————————————-

    To me it’s fairly simple

    You have a subject written by the same author on the topic of oh well shoot lets use Robotech!

    “What did you guys think of Hunters reaction when his big tall blonde buddy died?”

    as opposed to

    “What did you guys think of the big blond fag getting killed off? Ohhh boy now Ricky won’t get any more action!! HAHAH!”

    Guess which is appropriate versus which isn’t?

    To me it’s usually very simple. And we’ve never had a problem that I know of, of someone “overmoderating”. So I’m really not worried for the future.

    Just my 2 cents, I hope Minmei(that’s her name right?) won’t kill me for posting this =)

    #68207
    Anonymous
    Guest

    “If the sharks had no teeth then the fish would take over.”

    I’m for it, this is the last haven for Lexx fans to escape from lexx.com which has been plagued with people who killed scfi.com/lexx.

    And people have to remember this is Sad’s site not a public street or gov courthouse. You can’t shout freedom here. This is his house and we are guests. And if others don’t like the rules there are other lawless boon towns on the net to go to.

    #68208
    Jhevz
    Participant
    ”HisDivineShadow” wrote:

    ”If the sharks had no teeth then the fish would take over.”

    I’m for it, this is the last haven for Lexx fans to escape from lexx.com with has been plagued with people who killed scfi.com/lexx.

    And people have to remember this is Sad’s site not a public street or gov courthouse. You can’t shout freedom here. This is his house and we are guests. And if others don’t like the rules there are other lawless boon towns on the net to go to.

    Here, here, Wade,
    I’m in agreement with you; this is Sad’s site & should be respected as such. & I do think that if everyone respects this, then there won’t be arguments on this board; & they do know who they are.

    lexxrobotech,
    All you have to do is go to Usernames, then Forum Voice & finally wait to be accepted or not by me; if you don’t want to, wish to or like to, that’s fine with me.

    Posters Unite,
    Jhevz 😉

    #68218
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Nice sentiments :blush: Thanks.

    It’s not strictly true though. I may be the webmaster but it’s an interactive site and the members generally make more of the decisions about how things go than I do.

    As som eof you know, originally this site was a place where I could publish my rantings in the form of reviews about my fave sci fi shows. But I’ve had MUCH more fun reading the contributions of others so in the last 12 months I’ve concentrated on making the sit emore interactive rather than ‘SadGeezers House’, sure, it’s still a home, but I’m aiming for it to be a home for lots rather than just me and Newkate – and I think it’s getting there.

    Having said that I agree, this site will never be like scifi.com/lexx or even the much better moderated lexx.com – this site has never been in competition with those (much bigger and more popular) sites because we have different discussions here. I’m lucky in that there is usually a moderator on-line or lurking and you can be sure that because of this SadBOARD will never end up like SlipstreamWeb.com (closed because of flame wars).

    One final point, I’m also keen to voice such concerns regularly, and I (or others) will do so in the Help forum.

    ***** this topic is being moved to the Help Forum *****

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