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you weren't speaking to me here but i have to ask - on an aspie board, how do you expect people to pick up on this etiquette? if you frequent the board and notice people stepping on toes or something because they are unaware, maybe you could PM them and clue them in on how it's played. else people might post once or twice, inappropriately, and be shooed out of PPR when they would rather stick around and talk. i think this is similar to what DW_a_mom was saying.



i did that recently and was ignored. assume the mod didn't think it was a problem but maybe i wasn't specific enough.




i tend to agree with this - if you're not being heard, scream louder. paradoxically i also think this idea is where the out of line generalized statements come from though. there is an element of exaggeration because speaking quietly did not elicit the desired response. something like: "you don't believe me that i've had this experience? everyone has been like this to me. so they must all be like that."

DW and I have spoken about this a bit before, basically what I think is needed is a sticky thread to explain some of the ropes to new posters, I've been meaning to try my hand at writing one for a while now and keep getting distracted. At the moment however, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect someone to spend a little time in a forum getting to know it's norms and tolerances before they start unilaterally deciding what is and isn't allowed there and trying to bring the mods in.

If you read Hyperlexian's posts, exactly what you're suggesting did in fact occur, she was pm'd by several people letting her know that what she was reporting was SOP in PPR, and myself and others essentially countermanded her reporting post in the moderator attention thread. No one attacked her or anything, but it was made clear that reporting each other for things like that is not how we do things in PPR.

Frankly, the only people to be run out of PPR on the proverbial rail are the holders of extremely frowned upon ideologies that try to justify them; racists, holocaust deniers, conspiracy theorists, etc. It's not so much that these things are offensive in and of themselves (though that plays a role), but that they can't be backed up in any way, creationists get some of the same treatment but to a lesser degree. The point though is that we'll give ANYTHING a hearing, but we'll beat the hell out of things that don't make sense or assertions that have no rational basis, we don't need the mods to "protect" us from offensive topics, we take care of them ourselves.

no no NO! you misunderstand! those people PM'd me saying that the OP was not appropriate!! !! that's why i kept arguiong it - these other people were too afraid to come forward (escpecially after the pile up on the mod thread).

one person PM'd me to state that i may as well let it go because the original poster has a special ticket to say whatever he likes in PPR, and suggested that it was not worth it to continue arguing... but the rest unequivocally supported me.

i HAD looked around PPR, and i read the rules. just because you and other members of the 'club' think otherwise doesn't necessarily make it right. the mods did agree that time, but i would continue to flag such posts because i have the right to do so any time i feel that a thread or post is not appropriate. nobody should ever feel bullied out of doing so, and honestly that's how it felt. i did have poeple who were behind me as well, but they were too intimidated to speak up.

Dox, try to read over your posts here as an outsider. Pretend you had never posted in PPR before, but were just someone who enjoyed voicing and debating opinions. Would you really feel some of those expectations were realistic? You do sound like you are trying to defend being clubby. Think about it; this IS an AS forum; clubby is NOT what should happen.

As I said before, I am asking you to think about it. Give the comments time to digest. You don't have to defend yourself or anyone; or anything. Just ... consider, given the broader goals of Wrong Planet, how does what you want at this moment for the forum fit in? I really do trust that you can make a slight change in what new members encounter and deal with there if you want to. So, try it on for size. Consider if a small change in the unwritten rules make improve things long run (short run is usually rocky). Consider why some members might not be that comfortable there, and how that sense could harm the forum long run.

I think a valid point has been raised. The reality is probably much more nuanced than has been mentioned in the posts so far, and probably beyond what is appropriate for discussing here, but it is worth considering, especially by those who are attached to that board. So, just ... think about it. You want the best community you can have, and the liveliest exchange of ideas possible. I know you do.

This thread has hit on what I think are the two trickiest forums to moderate. And there are good reasons why that is true. It would be good to have moderators really aware of the unique needs in each, but I don't know if that can happen. I know it made a huge difference on the parenting board when I took that on, and maybe someone can do the same for these. But, given that we don't pick single board moderators, it is tricky. The membership can do quite a lot on its own, and I've seen it over and over. Someone talked a few posts above about alerting a moderator to a problem in a thread, and not getting any action from it, but maybe what the moderator saw was a situation that was already adquately dealt with by the membership. When that happens, it is always considered a good thing. Although, ideally, the moderator would answer back that this was the case; just, things get crazy when squeezing volunteer jobs between real life ones, and ideally does not always happen.

(sorry in advance for all the typos - I'm sure I'm out-doing myself for numerous reasons )

If that's the impression that I'm giving, then I'm being insufficiently clear. What I'm trying to convey is that PPR has a unique character unlike other forums on the board, and that attempting to regulate it to the standards of those other forums would destroy the PPR forum in the process. No one in PPR is trying to exclude new posters or run an exclusive club, all we're asking is that people new to the forum not judge prematurely.



I can try and make things clearer for new posters in that forum, but I'm going to need some cooperation from mods and others for bigger changes. What I'm most trying to fight here is this perception that some people seem to have that certain topics are so inherently offensive that even discussing them is/should be against the rules; that's just not how things work in PPR. The more insidious variant of this school of thought is "what will the NTs think?", like we're some sort of exhibit representing Aspiedom in general and have to never talk about anything controversial lest observers use our words as ammo. The rule of thumb there is that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and that they're further entitled to discuss it; the forum at large will render judgment in its own way without outside interference.



This is exactly what I'm talking about, PPR more than most forums takes care of it's own problems and only occasionally needs to call for moderator assistance with the really intractable problems. I'm pretty on the record with my support for proactive moderation, cooling off hot threads before actual action is needed and working to avoid having to use the more authoritarian remedies available to them, I've seen this approach work in PPR and know it can work on other forums as well.

As I said, just stuff to think about. I'm not about to tell you what to do or believe, but you now have some input on how it might look to someone else. Everyone has their own perspective, after all.

Oh, and on your nit pick of something I said quite a few posts back - you totally had a point. As you know

Yes, technically the issue is this, a generally Philosophy debate forum in which certain philosophies are banned from discussing, a generally Politics debate forum in which certain political positions are banned, or a generally Religion forum, in which certain denominational ideas are banned from discussing. That doesn't make sense, considering what the PPR is about, so yeah, I kinda agree with that position, however DW_a_mom has a point as well, I mean racists arguments seem to pose somehow of a problem, related to the spirit of the PPR forum VS the Rules of WP and the goals of WP, for instance, there was a comment there, refering to black girls as monkeys or something like that, you may already know from who that was, now, how comments like that should be taken considering the website's own philosophy and goals? IMO, I would say to make a distinction in how ideas are expressed from ideas being expressed.


For one, the creation of WP is for a purpose, if something happens anywhere in a site that undermines its purpose, then it is not convenient and considered a problem, thus, "what will the NTs think?" may have something to do to serve that purpose, of course, I'm not certain about this, but it is a fine point to consider.

I believe, IMHO, that the solution of this could be, which I don't consider a bad idea, to make the PPR forum part of the members-only area, the idea of this is to make this section hidden from public view, which can be seen as a positive aspect.

And perhaps even to introduce an age limit.

I think part of the problem (with PPR) is that it (and the other special-interest boards, although there isn't much room for disagreement on the other ones) has a different sort of purpose from the other boards on WP: in the other boards, people come for support and socialisation, but on PPR, people come to exchange ideas and debate them. So when people post about things on PPR, they are in for a bit of a surprise when people bluntly disagree with them. But if we didn't disagree with people, there'd be no point having the board. We probably could be a bit gentler, but all boards like this (where people debate about things) are like PPR in my experience, and it doesn't cause a problem because people know that people will disagree with them, and they don't want to waste time buttering them up first. So I don't think it's true that there's a club on PPR; it's just necessary because of its different subject matter for people to have slightly different expectations, or we couldn't have discussions of the kind of depth that we have.

Anyway, it would definitely help if we had a sticky, like Dox has suggested, explaining that this is the PPR forum, the goal of this forum is for people to disagree with your opinions, so you can arrive at more correct opinions, and you shouldn't take attacks on your opinions as attacks on yourself.

fair enough. i post in PPR, so i am actually also aware of what it can be like in there.

but i was referring to attacks directed at me in the moderator thread when i tried to flag a thread in PPR. i did not feel attacked on a thread in PPR at all. it was when 'the club' came out of PPR and engaged in a series of attacks on me in an outside forum that i felt it was unacceptable.

how about i tell you what bothered me enough to try to flag the thread? background: i would like for people of all cultures/religions/races/genders to be able to come to WP and feel welcome. debating issues related to these groupings is fine, absolutely. we can disagree on a philosophical level, and we do.

but in that thread, the OP implied (actually stated, but in another language) that all muslim people should be killed, regardless of whether they are extremists or moderates or liberals, because of the 9/11 attack.

i considered that unacceptable, and i was not alone. however, when i tried to flag the thread (within my right as a WP member), someone linked back to my post in the original thread, and i got dogpiled for flagging it. it has since been erased, because it turned into 20 pages of bickering. several people supported me, but contacted me privately because they did not want to get caught in the crossfire.

i was warned by two posters that the OP was untouchable and that the moderators would not get involved. and they didn't get involved. i didn't ever even get an explanation as to why the thread was considered acceptable for WP, in spite of both posting on that thread and in a PM afterward. so yeah, it feels like a club.

First of all, you weren't "attacked", what happened was that some PPR regulars felt that the content that you were objecting to was not out of line for PPR, and didn't want to see the thread locked or the OP of the thread sanctioned. The closest that any of the replies came to attacking you was the assertion that as a PPR newcomer you were insufficiently familiar with the forum to make the call on what is and isn't acceptable there.



That's his opinion, and as such he's allowed to state and discuss it in the PPR forum regardless of how odious it may seem to others; that's what PPR is for. The member in question is a septuagenarian WWII veteran, his opinions are bound to differ signifigantly from current sensibilities and we take that into account when interacting with him.



As it is the right of other WP members to disagree with your assessment, and to do so publicly both in the thread in question and in the moderation thread. You refer to people who privately agree with you but don't have the convictions to act on it, but the people who disagreed with you felt strongly enough to voice their feelings that you were in the wrong and present their arguments as to why. How do you know that none of us have inboxes full of supporting PMs?



The OP is not untouchable, you and your nebulous supporters just don't seem to understand the workings of the forum. That member does tend to bring out strong reactions in some people due to some of the factors I mentioned earlier, and as a result a number of spurious complaints have been lodged against him in the time that he's been a member here, that none of them have gone anywhere is not a comment on his "immunity" but rather on the veracity of the complaints against him. The mods owe you an explanation when they DO choose to act, not when they choose NOT to, though it's nice when they take the time to explain their reasoning.

wow. that's pretty outrageous.

no one should be given a hard time for objecting to something like that.

I like the cut of your jib SP .

Have you voted or commented in my PPR sticky brainstorming thread yet?

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt138230.html

The thread was a member discussing how the 9/11 attacks made HIM feel, that's completely fair game in PPR. The only "hard time" Hyper was given was having some people contradict her judgment that the thread was "too offensive". The thread is still up in PPR, you can check it out if you want, though the moderation request thread has since been reset and I can't speak to what might have been said in PMs.

eh .. respectfully, Dox, i think you're giving her a little bit of a hard time about it now. (Hyperlexian, if you disagree, then apologies to you both)

trying to see both sides of these issues and i have read all you've written here about how it goes in PPR and thought about it, also thought about how different rules might apply in L & D .. but i think if someone continually upsets other users, or a post has upset a lot of them, the situation should be mitigated a bit. maybe a disclaimer at least, added to certain posts.

just my 2 cents. i think you and i are really barely on opposite sides of this issue (of when mod intervention is appropriate).

i don't care for the idea of telling anyone they can't say x, y, or z; i just think people should not be intimidated by a pervasive attitude in areas of the forum. if there is an intimidation factor (how to you quantify such a thing? i know, you can't ... ) then it may actually inhibit some people from speaking freely - not the ones who are apt to post offensive things, but the ones who are affected by those posts.

does this make sense?

I am one of the "nebulous supporters" that contacted hyperlexian. At the time I haven't seen the thread in the PPR and couldn't care less either. But I've seen the posts in the moderator thread and realised she doesn't understand what's going on and she had reasons to get upset. I tried to warn her that the rules are different there, that the OP made similar threads about the Japanese and they were considered acceptable as long as they stayed in the PPR. I've also warned her about the futility of her exchange with a specific member who was making a fuss in the moderator thread - she was the one who backed off while he kept bickering. And I was the bossy one for not thriving on drama . That was precisely the reason why I contacted her privately - not the alleged weakness of my convictions or position but knowing from previous experience that any appeal to peace will just lead to war.

It's interesting how defensive some of the regulars get. A person who doesn't understand some rules that are not explained anywhere complained and was basically ignored by the moderation. Regardless of the validity of her complaint she is as entitled as anyone else to report something that goes against the general rules of the forum. Make "official" specific rules for the PPR and you won't have this problem.

Now anybody else would like ask about my PMs or other personal information?

Oh hell I thought my hobbits vs women post would derail this thread but apparently not.
I don't see the issue. If someone says something that flies in the face of your values or ethics then flame crap out of them and do it in such a way that denounces them and has them self-reflect and have to put up a case for their assertions. If they managed that then you have got something there. You are in a position to revalue your position or to go at them again. There will at some point be a consensus or a agreeing to disagree.
It is good to hold onto good values and test them and it is good to call out what you think is crappy values. A thread or forum set up for the same is awesome. Call it bad or indifferent all you like but the truth is getting butthurt over others having a different perspective is rather lame.
Hell if I think something is wrong I don't care who is saying it. Friend, foe or stranger. Collective or individual. I will call the behaviour or the point of view or the value. I certainly won't hate that others think differently to me. I expect it.