Most of you probably know that I play a little whistle & flute and am terrified of the pipes and know nothing about them. I say this by way of explanation for why I don’t post here–nor do I read this forum. I imagine that no news is good news and that’s been the case to date.
Today I received six emails from various people complaining about the problems with a thread. In order to be fair, I need to take time to read the thread carefully and decide what action, if any, I need to take. I don’t have time to do that at this moment. So, I’m going to lock this thread and ask that everyone just please cool it until I can get to this over the weekend.
I don’t say this to be manipulative but let me be clear that we provided this forum at the request of pipers and we extended it out of respect and courtesy for brother and sister musicians. We make no money from this and we spend our own time and/or funds to maintain it. We do, in fact, assume some liability for the contents and put ourselves at some risk. Accordingly, we would ask the courtesy that everyone conduct themselves with civility and respect and refrain from attack and insult. You are guests in this “home” and, perhaps unlike other forums on the Internet, we ask and expect you to demonstrate good manners or, bluntly, we will show you the door. We just don’t have time to monitor the board to delete and edit messages to protect ourselves. We will have to shut it down if we find ourselves having to step in and police to avoid problems. This won’t be a disaster–I will happily give you suggestions about alternative sites for this board.
Sorry to have to post this.
Peace on Earth and Herein.
Dale Wisely
Chiff & Fipple
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Dale
Dale Wisely
Chiff & Fipple HQ
[ This Message was edited by: DaleWisely on 2002-12-13 18:23 ]
Until now this forum has been a very well behaved community which has not shown any of the flaws of behaviour that are so unfortunately common on the whistleboard. While Liam was way over the top in his reactions I don’t think he was much further over the line in his insults than those occurring in the tantrums thrown on a regular basis by the person who considers himself ‘one of the most interesting and valuable contributors’ to the whistle community. In fact the outbursts of this person on hte whsitleboard are at best met with a request to ‘take it outside’. A recent thread about travellers and travelling pipers on the piping board recently was conducted with reason and restraint while a thread on the whistle board on the same subject shot so far into racist territory that in this country at least the matter would have gone through the courts like a flash if a case had been taken by the ethnic group under discussion. Yet no moderator stepped in, let alone was there any threat of the whistleboard being shut down.
In general I think this board functions well and the threat of shutting it down altogether if one of the members derails is at least in my eyes rather heavy handed.
Peter
[fixed typos]
[ This Message was edited by: Peter Laban on 2002-12-14 10:34 ]
Peter,
I think the problem is that the boards have grown beyond my limited capacity to moderate them. I need to look at options.
I’m not able to read the boards. It would take far too much time and I don’t have it. So, I am undoubtedly hit or miss.
My reaction in this thread was not heavy-handed, Peter. From the beginning, I’ve said that if we are going to provide the forums, people are going to have to be civilized. That problems are isolated, as you correctly point out, is a good thing. But, an isolated problem is a problem nonetheless.
I would not knowingly tolerate racism on the whistleboard. If you’ll point out where the offending messages are, I’ll take a look.
It may be that what I need to do is to ask each board to elect a couple of moderators or something. I don’t know…
But, to be honest, although I’m generally very much open to criticism, I get a little resentful when criticized for the rare action I take on these boards, given that, as I have pointed out, I don’t exactly get paid for doing this.
Dale
[ This Message was edited by: DaleWisely on 2002-12-14 16:32 ]
Did any of the U.P. members go to the yahoo site substitute while the tech difficulties occured? I thought to myself, “How nice of the people in charge to set up something to tide us over.” Then I began reading the posts. Little or no talk of music, lots of swearing (something the pipers generally tend to avoid {my bad, I hadn’t read pipedud’s posts yet ) and a flame war going on within one day. I think we’re all big boys and girls here and can behave accordingly.
Marc
[ This Message was edited by: marcpipes on 2002-12-14 15:15 ]
Good job, Dale, editing out those offensive posts by that so-called new kid on the block. There’s one more you need to take care of, if you haven’t already:
I whole-heartedly agree with Peter. While flame-wars are almost a daily occurence on the whistle board there has never been any open threats to shut it down. Is this just anti-uillean sentiment or what?
Maybe we should have moderators that really do moderate and not just fly around in their jets all day long counting the number of ways people spell subscrybe…
The idea of moderators is a good one. Moderators have been put to great use on Bob Dunsire’s GHB forum. You’ve been doing an excellent job moderating, Dale, but you’re right that the board has grown too large. The help of moderators would keep the heat down. Look at http://www.bobdunsire.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi/ to see an example of how moderators can be used.
Cheers,
Aaron
On 2002-12-14 19:58, John Allison wrote:
I whole-heartedly agree with Peter. While flame-wars are almost a daily occurence on the whistle board there has never been any open threats to shut it down. Is this just anti-uillean sentiment or what?
Maybe we should have moderators that really do moderate and not just fly around in their jets all day long counting the number of ways people spell subscrybe… >
On 2002-12-14 22:50, AaronMalcomb wrote:
The idea of moderators is a good one. Moderators have been put to great use on Bob Dunsire’s GHB forum. You’ve been doing an excellent job moderating, Dale, but you’re right that the board has grown too large. The help of moderators would keep the heat down. Look at > http://www.bobdunsire.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi/ > to see an example of how moderators can be used.
Cheers,
Aaron
Thanks. I’m working on this. I appreciate the suggestion.
I ofcourse wholeheartedly agree with the reasonable person pronciple and I did not at any time suggest that the sort of behaviour we have seen here over the past few days should be tolerated but again, most of what we have seen here is an exteemely common appearance on the whislteboard and compared to the action generally taken there the threat of shut down is in my eyes un-even and heavy handed. Don’t let this board suffer for the fact the moderator can’t keep up with the job. Appointing other moderater seems a good idea, talk has been going on on giving moderating powers to those involved in the ITM board and this could work well here too, if anyone wants the job.
On 2002-12-14 19:58, John Allison wrote:
I whole-heartedly agree with Peter. While flame-wars are almost a daily occurence on the whistle board there has never been any open threats to shut it down. Is this just anti-uillean sentiment or what?
Maybe we should have moderators that really do moderate and not just fly around in their jets all day long counting the number of ways people spell subscrybe… >
Okay…please point out the most recent “flame war.”
I had just observed manners improved greatly in the last week or two, since Dale landed on a couple of folks.
Let me just say that in the last 24 hours I’ve come to realize that I have undoubtedly been somewhat uneven in my application of moderator sanctions. The problem, in short, is that the boards have gotten too big for me to read, particularly the whistleboard. So, things get by me.
I’m looking at solutions and will be getting back to folks on this.
the fact that you were bombarded with e-mails about THAT thread may have created a misleading impression about this forum, which is generally entirely on topic and even less subject to flareups than the main board.
I don’t see any real need for more active moderating, which I think would be an over-reaction to an isolated incident. Being myself the owner of a Rogge set, I was tempted to get into the thread, but decided to stay out because of the tone which it had taken.
It seems to have got even nastier over the weekend, but I note that the offending posts have since been deleted, apparently by their authors. Uilliam has posted an apology, and I’m not too sure at this stage who has left and who is staying, but it seems to me that the incident is closed.
Perhaps it would have helped if a few cheesemakers like myself had got in a little earlier and asked the hotheads to tone down their contributions. That’s the lesson which I plan to draw from this little spat, and maybe you could suggest it via a new thread on the main board too, where even some of the legendary cutie-pies get an occasional rush of blood to the head.
) and a flame war going on within one day. I think we’re all big boys and girls here and can behave accordingly.
)