What's the point?

Hi all:

I'm responding to a series of posts...Down disappointed with the restrictions on PC. Wants2Fly wants the jest of young life...and feeling pleased with better communication with Mom. _Sky is helping with the Superbowl. fayerody loves her silver.

I don't have an answer to all the issues. I do have one thing I want to get done in the next few days: About a week ago I got a phone call from an old high school friend--a good friend, I was his best man. The thing he had to tell me was that one of our best friends had died. I was so disappointed in myself that I hadn't kept in touch with him so I could have checked in with him again before he was gone. I hope to contact some other HS friends to see if we can get news about the people who were so important to us during those years.

Have any of you found a way to do that meaningfully? I'm thinking of setting up an email tree that that group of friends can send news or just ask how others are doing.

My class was rural and small--only 13--and we were in the same classes all 12 years, so we were close.

Drclay

i was in a class of 23 and 6 of us were a "cliche"...according to the home ec teacher. we've lost one to heart problems and the rest of us are in close contact.......we have "mini reunions".......

Can I put my 2 cents in now, being no stranger to controversial threads, edited or deleted posts and even a few locked threads myself I would like to say this:

Firstly, nicely put change of subject without addressing the continuing issues of the original thread doc clay, distraction and avoidance. truly a professional.

Secondly
The Anne Frank analogy was rather moving but I don’t see how her story relates to the original post by down, yes she wrote her story for all to see, has a form of escapism from the horrors she endured, ect, ect, ect. but ask yourself this, when the book was published was it edited? Or was it an exact copy word for word in the original context and original meaning in which she wrote it?

In fact it was edited, Who decided what did and didn’t go into the book that we all can read today, I think that is one kind of censorship that down is referring to, so I think that was a rather bad example to use to base your reply on,

The same basis applies to this site and many others on the net, censorship of freedom of speech, yes we all have differing views on the same subject, who is right and who is wrong I hear you ask? The correct answer is neither party, there is no right and wrong, just opposing views, each with there merits and demerits that effectively cancel each other out, To throw into the ring someone with the power to say this thread should be locked, edited or deleted because of..ect…ect…is negating the opinions of both or all parties involved and replacing it with there own opinion, this indeed is censorship,

Granted there are rules and regulations that apply on any site and in real life that one must adhere too to remain a member of said site or society, does everyone adhere to the rules all the time? the simple answer is no, exceptions are made for some, but not others, that also is censorship but in a differing form, still censorship,

This is where the line gets blurry, what do you do with the people like myself who refuse to be gagged even when society demands it? Online and in real life, all that society can do is alienate the minority that do stand up and make there voices heard whether you want to hear them or not, revolts have started for less, wars even less still.

Has you may know we have Speakers Corner in Hyde Park in london where freedom of speach is our legal right every sunday where we can voice our concerns about society or whatever tickles our fancy, but what a lot of people, mostly the tourists, dont know is that freedom of speach has actually been further restricted under the new anti terrorism laws passed in this country, the irish were resticted when we were at war with them from freedom of speach for over 20 years, now any mention of muslims, anti or pro have the same restrictions and you can be arrested , imprisoned without charge, and be forever more classed has a terrorist. both of these examples fall way short of the mark of "free speach" yet has a "free" society we have no legal recourse to appeal, where will it stop i ask myself?

The cold hard truth of the matter is no matter how many rules and regulations are imposed upon society online or in real life in the form of censorship, there will always be the minority that disagree and in some guise or form WILL have there voices heard.

That’s my take on the issue raised by downs original post

Feel free to edit this into a incomprehensible mess, it is not ment has a personal attack on doc clay, I would just like his opinion on this, no metaphors or analogies please just straight talk answers

mellors

mellors:

I'd like to respond to your 2/05 post because I sense that I offended you. It certainly wasn't my intention. Apparently I changed the topic by responding to several people (threads) with my own concern. I'm sorry if I violated protocol on PC but other lists I have been on freely add a thread and I thought posters here were free to do that.

One thing I really should apologize for is I think I may have repeated my problem about staying in touch with old friends. If I did, I'm sorry.

Now about my views about censoring comments on a forum. I think I'm pretty close to mellors. Any censoring should be limited to extreme situations--serious threats of suicide that can't be prevented, injury to others too?, lies about individuals, psychotic rambling (maybe), dominating the forum, and that kind of thing. I would not to try to find which person is wrong...I would look for the basis for each opinion. All I hear you saying.

Yes, I agree it is almost impossible to shut a person up entirely. And why would one want to?

I would tell you my personal opinion on any matter you raise, if there are more issues, but I need to have your questions clear in my mind. Let's talk.

drclay

I suppose I'll have to be careful or the thread will get locked or 'moved' (which seems to be psychcentral speak for 'relocated to the trash). what seems to happen here is that if people use the 'report this post' function the moderators take a look at the post and they might well decide to lock / move the thread. i'm a little disappointed in that they oftentimes don't seem to read the thread in its entirety to figure out whether there might be something they can say to help move things along in a more productive way. i'm a little disappointed in that they oftentimes seem to go with the complaints over what the person actually did say. i'm a little disappointed in that they sometimes post accusatory / hostile things (assign blame) before locking the thread. but in their defence... time is limited.

i've been on a few different boards now and each board has had a distinct flavour of moderation. the boards seemed to have a different flavour too, perhaps as a consequence of the moderation or perhaps the differences in moderation rose up out of the differences in the flavour of the boards. i'm talking mental health boards who have at least one professional as moderator (though often consumers to assist).

is there a perfect blocking / locking system? i don't know. there are places (e.g., usenet) where there isn't any moderation at all. i've taken a look but i have to admit i've had no desire to post there whatsoever. people were really rather blatent with their accusations and hostilities and put downs and in some instances threats. so i think it is good that there are some limits on what people can say. if you really think about it there are limits on what people can say IRL too. if you yell 'fire' in the movie theatre or 'bomb' on the plane you will face consequences. there are liable and slander suits as well...

but where to draw the limits?

i find this a really interesting question and i wish we were allowed to discuss it in the interests of making progress (because nothing is perfect surely).

but one of the rules of the site is that we aren't allowed to discuss administrative issues on the boards. administration issues are dealt with privately by personal message. i can't remember the exact phrasing of the rules... i don't really see why we can't discuss very general issues like this... i guess it is that admin doesn't think we can have a profitable discussion about it? maybe thinking it... makes it so.

sigh.

sucks to feel censored though huh.

i'm sorry.

in answer to one of the questions: yes posters get blocked from this site for a time. nothing is posted to the boards about it, however. i've been blocked before. during that time my computer seemed to be locked so i couldn't even read / view the pages.

i guess that after a time of posting on the boards... you start to collect email addresses and things like that. i will say that in my experience doc john only blocks someone from posting as a last resort strategy. i fully earned my block. i get that. in a way i would have been disappointed if i hadn't been blocked. there have to be some limits, sheesh.

;-)

yes we should talk sometime, another thread maybe so has not to change the context of this thread,

you didnt offend me, i just wanted to put this thread back on track, and by asking you your personal opinion, not a clinical opinion, on my interpretation of the original post, i achieved the objective i set out to complete, thank you for your responce.

i post a lot in the mens forum nowadays see you in there sometime i would happily converse with you on any of the subjects that are covered in there and any opinions you may have.

Just to be clear... Controversial threads or threads where there's a lot of good discussion with one or two ad hominem posts are more often than not left alone, or the one offending post is removed. Controversial threads are *always* discussed amongst the moderators and admins before *any* action is taken.

I do not take the deletion or moving of posts lightly and we have always worked hard to err on the side of leaving things alone that do not violate a Community Guideline. But yes, if you openly violate one of our community guidelines, it's inevitable that the post will be acted upon. If you don't agree with the community guidelines, I'd have to ask what about a specific guideline you disagree with to be able to respond to specific points.

We try our best to be fair and administer fairly, but at the end of the day, we're humans just like you. We make mistakes. We're not perfect. But each and every one of the people who volunteers to help out around here takes the responsibility very seriously.

John

I hear what you are saying doc john, and I agree, we are all human, with our own inherent built in flaws, mine are no different to other peoples, its the way we express them that makes us different, myself personally, I say what I see and feel, I don’t feather my responses to threads or in real life and I don’t think I ever want to change that because to change my approach to life in general would only push me back into the shell I have spent my entire life trying to crawl out off.

It took me a long time to edit my original post so has to keep within the guidelines, taking it to limit, but not exceeding it, whilst at the same time fully expressing my personal interpretation of dsl‘s thread, so that it wouldn’t get edited or deleted.

I agree that the mods and admin team do have a hard time moderating the many forums you provide for us here, and that they volunteer for these positions, to help you keep the members of this site safe, and they do a brilliant job of looking after the 13000+ members here,

But then there are some people who feel slighted in some way after having there posts edited or removed, or feel aggrieved and continue in the same vein of thought in other threads, I myself have been guilty of this on occasion, others let it go and move on,

So firstly I would like to apologize to any mod or admin that has felt I have reacted unfairly towards them in regards to any thread they have had to edit, delete or lock to which I have crossed the line in, I know how hard it is for you to have to do this at times, putting your own personal opinions aside, but your right, it does have to be done, and the blame should sit squarely on my own shoulders for putting you all in the position that you have had to make that decision , I crossed the line, you did what had to be done, its that simple, there is no one to blame but myself.

And last but not least you doc, we have clashed on more than one occasion in our differing opinions on a variety of subjects, you didn’t lock the threads, delete or edit them, that I can remember, you did however let them run their course, giving me straight answers to ponder over, and I respect you for that, that’s why I am still here after 2 years on this site, sure I might not agree with everything you do, or say but I do now know to look at the bigger picture regarding this site and not just 1 small detail.

"Yes, I agree it is almost impossible to shut a person up entirely. And why would one want to?"

You did me.

I'm not all that familiar with the guidelines here, truth be told. I suppose I try to go with common sense really. I have had my attention drawn to several things in my time here, however, most notably about not talking about administration issues / decisions on the boards and not 'debating' especially with respect to politics and religion.

I don't really grasp how things work here...

I will say that I've noticed a general pattern of this, however:

Person A starts a thread where they are saying how they feel or similar.
Person B responds in some kind of frustration at A
Person C responds in some kind of frustration at A
This culminates...
In Person's A thread being locked.
And often times... In a final post (before the locking of the thread) which assigns blame to A.

If there was intervention with respect to comments to the effect that B was being unsupportive then this might prevent the thread from escalating. I guess my concern with this general pattern is that it is possible for one or two people to take offence to a thread (to willfully misread a thread even) then send off a couple 'report this post''s to the mods then for the thread to be locked or deleted (thus reinforcing / validating their behaviour).

That is a concern I have.

I appreciate that the moderators are human and that humans make mistakes. I'm saying this because it is a *general pattern* I have noted, however. People aren't ideally / perfectly reflective either and sometimes it can help to get a relatively objective take... Or not... Take what you will...

> if you openly violate one of our community guidelines, it's inevitable that the post will be acted upon.

I'm not at all sure that it is... I've seen a lot of attacks towards persons left and one post singled out all of a sudden when the posts that wound them up initially are simply ignored.

> If you don't agree with the community guidelines, I'd have to ask what about a specific guideline you disagree with to be able to respond to specific points.

Is this an invitation?

> each and every one of the people who volunteers to help out around here takes the responsibility very seriously.

yes. i don't mean for this to undermine that people here are doing the best they can and that it is a hard job to do. i don't mean to undermine that at all. but then... one can hold that in ones mind... dwell on it... and at the very same time... reflect on ways to improve

;-)

Let me put things into perspective here...

We get somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 posts/threads per week here at this community. I'd say somewhere between 95-98% of those posts/threads are posted without any issue, no moderator intervention, no issues arising. That's because the *vast majority* of posts and threads are a-okay -- they are here to support one another and help one another with issues in their lives.

So unless you're honestly reading those 4,000-5,000 posts/threads per week, I'd have a hard time believing you're observing a "general pattern." I do a *lot* of reading here and even I don't pretend to be able to keep up.

What I do notice is that the biggest problems comes from the same few topics and people trying to discuss them with one another. This is an observation I've made over the past 12 years of running online communities. And that is specifically why we ask people to restrict themselves on these subjects.

We're happy to improve what we do here, and that's why I'm okay with this thread. But I'd ask that we stay away from generalizations that aren't necessarily true and instead focus on specific issues that a person has a question or problem with. I can address specific threads or specific questions about things, but I can't address broad categorizations that may or may not be true.

DocJohn

The 'general pattern' wasn't an observation about the way threads *typically* go. It was an observation about the way LOCKED threads *typically* go. You know, the threads with the little padlock on them. There are considerably less of those and thus it isn't so very hard to keep up with them ;-)

> We're happy to improve what we do here, and that's why I'm okay with this thread.

That's terrific :-)
In fact... I think it is really great that you are allowing this to continue :-) It might be the case that the thread disintegrates, that is true. Or... It might not. But you know what? Even if a thread does disintegrate that doesn't mean that nobody benefited from it...

> I'd ask that we stay away from generalizations that aren't necessarily true

You mean like 2+2=5 is necessarily true (i.e., true in all possible worlds) ;-)

Wasn't it clear that I was talking about LOCKED threads and not ALL threads? I'm sorry I'm not clearer. I mean that most genuinely. I do have trouble being understood by people sometimes and I'm genuinely sorry for that. I'm working on it. But... I'm also doing my best.

While I agree that over-generalisations etc tend not to help things along I do think that talking abstractly rather than homing in on particular examples can help with respect to people being able to discuss things relatively objectively. But then one does need to provide particular examples at one point. And... I won't be doing that here.

I think...
I could be wrong...
But I think...

The thread could return to the original concerns something along the lines of...

How do people feel when you think your words have been censored?
When have you felt like that has happened to you before?

I think it is fairly normal for people to be more or less involved in an online community over time. Percieved 'let downs' can often pre-empt someone leaving to have some time away.

When have people felt like that before?
How do they construe / explain what happened now?

(Aka... I don't think this is or needs to be construed as a personal attack on the moderators.)

It could help the boards for people to be able to talk about such things... If it is treated as allowing a process rather than getting hung up on the content thing... But who knows... Maybe someone will 'report this post' and get a few friends to 'report this post' in which case...

Given that there will always be threads that need to be locked, how can we mitigate the results of people feeling badly because the thread was locked?

> Given that there will always be threads that need to be locked, how can we mitigate the results of people feeling badly because the thread was locked?

I guess there are two options: acceptance and change (and these don't have to be mutually exclusive).

Lets start with acceptance.

How do people feel when their threads are locked? It could (perhaps) be profitable for people to talk about this. Maybe they feel... Like their opinion isn't valued. This isn't at all to say that locking a thread means that their opinion isn't valued. That can be true at the very same time as they FEEL like their opinion isn't valued. Maybe... What their hurt / upset is really about... Is that it reminds them of times in the past when their opinion really wasn't valued. Sometimes people find a benefit to realising they are not alone with their feelings and realising that they are not alone with their experiences. Sometimes talking about these things can help reduce the intensity of the feeling in response to the present.

With respect to change...

I guess that people could attempt to change their behaviour so the threads are less likely to be locked. For me... That would involve my not posting to threads where people are having a heated discussion. Not posting things that are controversial. Not posting anything challenging. The trouble with this strategy (for me) is that I personally find those kinds of threads to be those that I get a whole heap from. Sometimes discussions become heated because peoples core beliefs are changing and the heat is a defensive strategy... Sometimes people might benefit from the conversations even though it is hard to see the benefit on the thread.

I guess that with respect to what admin could do...

Well...

I'm happy to talk about ways we can manage our distress truth be told.

;-)

Alex said: "but one of the rules of the site is that we aren't allowed to discuss administrative issues on the boards. administration issues are dealt with privately by personal message. i can't remember the exact phrasing of the rules... i don't really see why we can't discuss very general issues like this... i guess it is that admin doesn't think we can have a profitable discussion about it? maybe thinking it... makes it so.

sigh.

sucks to feel censored though huh.

i'm sorry."

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ i, too, wish we could discuss things more openly on the board.

i also wish that when a thread starts to sour, that administration would look carefully to see WHO "turned" it and deal with that person instead of locking or deleting the entire thread, thereby punishing everyone else who was trying to have a civil discussion........i've felt very hurt several times when a poster comes in and causes an undue ruckus and gets the thread locked or deleted. it's not fair to the original poster. i believe that causes discouragement and questions about why we're here........and it seems, to me, that there is a pattern at PC where some posters aren't dealt with when they do disrupt a thread and start hurling challenges and insults. There......now this thread will probably be locked. xoxoxo pat

<font color="blue">I don't understand. While I'm very appreciative that you are having this dialogue, how is this NOT discussing administrative issues? In the past, and I do mean RECENT past, this kind of questioning resulted in being warned for public discussion of admin issues.

Even when trying to discuss something of this nature in PM with mods or admin, it was NOT acceptable.

I think this is exactly what some of the members are concerned about: NEVER knowing what is acceptable and what isn't or when, and how it seems to be up to the whim of the admin/moderator...without consistency.

Again, it's nice that you have chosen, DocJohn, to have this discussion. I just wish it could have been with me, or downsolong.

As for locked threads... I don't see a need to lock threads because of content... delete the offending posts. My GAME thread of Questions Only was locked mainly because of 2 posts (and 2 postees)... but when the thread wasn't reinstated (because the posts were not going to be deleted) it was because of server issues...and the carte blanc support of moderator's actions. The closing post could have be rewritten to state the server issue, like the other long threads were explained, but it wasn't. I used that thread as my only - ONLY - fun here at PC, and it's locking came at a time when I was having great difficulty with my dying service dog, and stress over holidays etc. I mean, it couldn't have come at a much worse time. But no one cared to talk with me over it.

While you do state things here in the public forums, and good statements they are, they don't always depict what the attitude of the moderators and other admin are, imo.

For one instance, you say things will always be available for discussion in PM when there's a problem or misunderstanding. I'm saying, "It ain't so." Maybe it's just me, IDK. Maybe I am expected to be able to read minds and understand. IDK.

Another thought about locking threads... some members take pride in getting a conflicting member's thread locked. Some are very cunning in the way they do it. There's a real battle on PC with this at times, imo. Then, the locked thread is there for all to read anyway...what good is that? It continues the discussion and if any, upset.

Remove the offending posts. If they all offend, then delete the thread. When the offending post is removed, copy and paste it to the offender in a PM, so they KNOW what you're talking about. If a mod just PMs the offender and says I had to edit/delete your post, then a member just has to take their word for it, and can't figure out why or what...because they don't know what exactly was posted.

Again, thanks for working on communication on PC. I think improving this area will continue to keep PC at the top of the game! TC

(((pat)))

it is hard...
it is hard...

in a similar vein...

i have some questions:

1) would people prefer it if there wasn't moderator intervention AT ALL?

some things to think about here are that there are limits on what you can say IRL (e.g., the examples I offered before of yelling 'fire' or 'bomb' or libel or slander). I don't think we are supposed to talk about other boards? But I will say that if you want an example of an unmoderated board where anything goes then check out usenet. There is a danger that with no moderation people will feel free to post such things as 'I think you should just %#@&#! OFF alexandra_k you USELESS SACK OF %#@&#! you aren't wanted here and WE HATE YOU'. Some people prefer total liberty but the problem with having total liberty is that other people have total liberty to say whatever they please to you... That could result in the boards being more hostile and less supportive.

I guess some people will jump off the boat here and say that they prefer no moderation.

I guess that most people will conceed that some moderation is neccessary, however.

So then the million dollar question becomes:

2) How to decide on the best moderating / sanctioning system?

And that IMHO is where the real issue is...

I've been thinking about one of the rules in particular. The one where we aren't allowed to discuss administration issues on the main boards.

Lets imagine that people could discuss administration issues on the main boards. Here are some possible costs to that:

- People could get involved in long debates which takes their time and energy away from offering support to others (so the boards become less supportive as a result)
- The debates could turn hostile (so the boards become more hostile as a result)
- The administrators feel they need to jump in to justify their decisions (or whatever) and they may get burned out in consequence (which could harm the boards and the moderators)

Here are some possible benefits:

- People might benefit from seeing that others have smimilar feelings about moderator desicions as they do (which could result in increased support)
- The debates could help people figure out that they are responding more to past issues then present issues (which could result in the boards being more useful to the people involved in the discussion)
- The administrators might actually save time by responding to lots of people with one post rather than responding to each person individually by personal message. This could result in their feeling empowered and more effective (which could benefit the moderators and participants)

And there are pros and cons of not discussing admin stuff on the boards as well (which might be different from the above or not)

Basically...

I'm too drunk to tell.

Hic.

Need to sleep... zzzzzzz

i have to go to work and will try to condense this.

1. thank you very much, sky.........you said a lot of what many of us feel. i've trying the old PMing method and gotten chewed out or no answer at all..........and the rest of what you said was great!

2. Alex, i don't want a board without moderators. i want consistency and fairness on the board. it isn't here now.

3. off to work now..........pat

Wow.

Well, all I can say is that I wish some of you could be a fly on the wall during our moderation team discussions. EVERY SINGLE decision is preceded by a long discussion with MULTIPLE points of view, precisely about whether a decision would be 1) fair, and 2) consistent. And after the action has been taken, one of the mods/admins always follows up in the discussion with whether they PMed the member(s) and if they don't explicitly say so, one of us will ask to make sure.

Can we try harder? I don't know. Maybe I can. But I will say that NO, the other mods/admins cannot try harder -- they are working extremely hard and are already giving their best at all times. We don't always see eye-to-eye, but we are ALWAYS are guiding our decisions by whether they are being fair and consistent. If we're failing in that, it's not because we're not trying. The other mods and KD are working exceedingly hard -- much harder than any volunteer should have to work, and I'm not about to back up any criticism that they aren't doing a good job. They are doing a FANTASTIC job in what is often a brutal environment with little appreciation.

It's interesting that 'fair and consistent' is the biggest complaint. Those who are outraged at moderation actions are often those who demand that we make exceptions for them, and that we make inconsistent and unfair decisions at the expense of another member who has irritated or angered them.

Before I was a mod or admin, I was one of the more vocal members and I have ALWAYS been very up-front with authority figures. When I didn't agree with a decision or policy, I was one of the first to speak up about it. When asked to become a moderator, I saw it as an opportunity to make it MORE fair and LESS restrictive.

But once I started walking a mile in a mod/admin's shoes, I realized how idealistic I had been as a regular member. The complaints that most of you have... you're asking us to be unfair and inconsistent. Whenever you 'demand' that put one of your posts back after you've crossed the line, or that we ban a member because you don't like what or how often or to whom they write, you're asking us to be unfair and inconsistent. When we refuse to do so, it's because we WON'T be unfair and inconsistent. Yet some of you can't take 'no' for an answer, or you can't accept a point of view that's not your own, and start accusing us of control freak behavior.

Am I cut out for this job? Maybe not, because some of the posts in this thread, frankly, are pushing me beyond my limits for what I am and am not willing to put up with as a volunteer.

hmm..... I admit that I started drafting a post here but deleted it (sigh)

You have my support ((((((((((((( LMo )))))))))))))

I also was hurt by the comment "unfair and inconsistent" .... I smelt something a little fishy there Whatever. It could be that some members might "assume" some of the posts in this thread are about them too

I also like Septmorn's comment from another thread...."When you point a finger at someone, three fingers point back at you"...

What's the point was my question and thread title. It's generated more chatter than I expected or can process so far. I will say drclay the constraints you mention sound reasonable but little like the PC many of us have come to love and loath.
~Down

We ALL agree with what Dr. Clay said as well, Down.

My point is that it's much easier in theory than it is in practice. There are more practical considerations than the idealistic vision can accommodate.

((((((((((LMo))))))))))

I appreciate that it is a really really really really really hard job to do and that the moderators take the responsibility very seriously and don't make snap decisions on a whim.

Really I do.

I understand that quite often it might feel like one is caught between a rock and a hard place where you are accused of being unfair by x if you make this decision and you are accused of being unfair by y if you make this other decision etc etc etc.

There does come a point where you just have to go 'Enough!' and refocus on moving forward.

Please don't take this discussion personally. Please, please, please, please, please. It would be really very unfortunate if this discussion turned that way.

It would help if people could focus on moving towards an ideal rather than focusing on how the current state of affairs alledgedly falls short of it.

If you are finding this discussion to be getting to you then... You might profit from not reading it. I don't see any reason at all why you should be obliged to read it. I don't think that your position as a moderator means that you are obliged to read it even less to respond to it. But that being said I'm glad you did because hopefully it will help us to remember that moderators are people with feelings just like the rest of us.

Algorithm... I've wondered a lot about whether there could be a blocking algorithm. Then when I despaired at that I wondered whether one could make a neural net and apply learning algorithms to adjust the weightings (so it could learn) to make moderator judgements. You know... The latter might well be possible (given a grunty enough computer and enough people to develop the program etc etc) but it would only be as good as the current system anyway (because you need to decide whether it has made a correct verdict or not in order to assess whether you adjust the weightings or not).

If there were prejudices towards sanctioning a certain person (for example) and I am NOT AT ALL suggesting that happens here, but *hypothetically* IF THERE WERE then the program would acquire that bias too...

But...

The program wouldn't have hurt feelings if we disagreed, I guess

:-)

Better communication thread:

There is a lot of good communicatiion going on about what causes and how to block upsetting posts. Clearly several people have been frustrated and have ideas about how to do it differently. I don't have the experience to add much to that discussion but I may have some ideas--maybe naive--about other ways to reduce strain among earnest communicators.

I want to commend alexandra k for her ideas (she credits alcohol (:-) but I think she may just be an other experienced and clever person. She asks us: "suppose posters could discuss their hurts and explore where their sensitive feelings are coming from." In other words, she is asking if we can turn these stressful interactions into learning experiences. I'll vote for that!

There are very important skills taught and sometimes used by therapists which might contribute mightly to the kinds of discussion we want to have. Many skills are explained in detail in my Chapter 13. Therapists constantly use "listening and empathy responses" to find out what the other person means and what is going on inside another person. "I messages" are important when trying to communicate sensitive information. There are other ways to express anger constructively. Conflicts can be resolved. These are skills you can learn and take into all relationships.

I'm sure this able group could help each other to moderate many of their differences without putting the devoted moderators out of business. My self-assigned task is to give psychology away. If I can help any of you learn some simple effective communication skills, please let us talk about it on the Sharing Self-Help Ideas forum.

This is not to divert attention away from moderating. It is just another idea.

drclay