Accountability in a police state.

I'll repost here my suggestion for how this should be addressed.  I just wrote this in cherneski's thread, where the current abuse has most recently been taking place:

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The Report This Post button is a very valuable tool for those of us who offer advice and support on the diagnosis and treatment threads.  It allows us to get rid of spammers much more quickly than if we had to report the spam to the moderators and wait for the posts to be deleted - that was the old process, and it could take days for posts to be deleted.  For this reason, I think that that Report This Post button is necessary.  But it is being misused, mostly in "social" type situations.  The solution to the misuse is, in my mind, very simple. 

• Option one: Whenever the Report This Post button is pushed and a post is deleted, the names of the 5 or 6 members who pushed the button should be listed publicly below the "This Post has been removed by the Community" message.  That would stop the abuse pretty quickly.  As someone who uses the button to eliminate spam posts, I have no problem if my name is listed whenever a post is deleted. 
• Option two:  I assume that the moderators know who has pushed the "report this post" button when a post has been deleted.  If it's determined that the reason for the deletion was strictly personal - i.e. the post was not spam - then after one misuse of the button, the member should be warned.  After two misuses of the button, the member should be warned again.  And after the third misuse of the button the member should be permanently banned from this website. 

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Something needs to be done.  When the misuse of the Report This Post Button was restricted to the "social" threads, maybe the problem could be ignored (although it probably shouldn't have been since it caused so much in-fighting and angst).  But now that this has invaded the Just Diagnosed forum, this situation cannot be allowed to continue.

There a thread in Help Me Get Through Treatment called "Not for the Easily Offended," barbe.  Regardless of the warning, the easily offended read it and deleted the original post - in fact, they've deleted quite a few posts from the thread.  Check it out.

2. If you hit the report button, lets say 5 times, all of your own posts should be deleted. This should make you think twice before subjecting everyone else to your self proclaimed rules of conduct. Furthermore, if you have a history of hitting the report button, you should be asked to leave the site since it is clear that it is not a place where you belong.

3. If you report a subject, the moderators should immediately reissue the deleted post if the records show that you continue to visit the offending topic that originally upset you so much that you deemed it unsuitable for ALL of us."

I AGREE WITH ALL COMMENTS!!

Sige, LOVE your new avatar!!!!!

I have reported more than 5 threads though. I roam around the boards and if I come on a solicitation and report it, I usually check their history and see that they've posted on a whole bunch of different forums. I go to each one and report it. Does anyone remember that woman with her breast pictures who didn't have cancer and wanted us to admire her boob job? She was a pain! Then there is a guy that is trying to promote this website for some strange reason...There has been a lot of that crap going on.

I don't think it's fair that you can report a post from a regular member! We are all here for the same reason. If someone has an offensive post (I read that one mentioned above, and it DID warn about being offensive, so why did someone read it if they couldn't handle it?????) then put on your big girl panties and ignore it. Holy crap, how old are these people??????????

Maybe they don't have big girl panties?

CONGRATS!!!! How did you do it? Whichever one you are in your avatar, you're gorgeous! I am SO impressed...

As someone who used to moderate large online forums, I have a few opinions about this from both sides of the coin.

First of all, moderators have thankless (often unpaid) jobs.  It is very difficult to maintain a forum for hundreds/thousands of people and keep everyone happy.  So the best/only way to manage it is to have hopefully a small set of rules/guidelines that everyone (hopefully) can live with.  When the rules get to be too many or too complicated/complex, then you start having various interpretations of said rules and everyone seeing the same rule 12 different ways and arguments and conflicts arise.

That said, I don't know all the various rules at play in this particular situation, except that apparently it is a no-no to use explicit profanity in the titles of threads, the content of postings, and possibly in the images of your avatar.  That's a simple enough rule.  It's one that reeks of juvenility for a discussion board supposedly comprised of adults, but I can see how for the comfort of the "MANY" a simple "don't use explicit profanity" rule is appropriate, even if a few (or more) rightfully and justifiably disagree with it.

So, as a response to this, some people decide they wish to challenge the rule and gather a following to their side who happen to agree with them and their view.  Then the other folks who agree with the rule rally their troops, and fights and conflicts abound, all around what should be a simple rule that all adults can abide by.

For what it's worth, I don't see anything wrong with being able to use profanity on an adult discussion board.  I believe that if people are offended by seeing such words, they can ignore the users of such words or not visit those threads.  That 's my PERSONAL opinion.  I also despise censorship.

However, as someone who knows the pains of moderation, I realize that I have to balance my personal opinion on such matters with the rules of those who established and run this site.  And just like I tell others they can simply "not visit an offensive thread" I can also choose not to visit the site that has rules I believe are unreasonable.  It goes both ways.

In this instance, being a relative newbie to the whole breast cancer thing, I had to balance my need for the support and information provided here against what I believe to be a somewhat overbearing seat of policies for an adult group of women dealing with very sensitive, adult and often gut-wrenching issues.  Ok, so I won't use explicit profanity straight-on-full-out.  I can live with that.  I don't agree with it and think it's silly, but I can live with it.

One thing people often forget is that private discussion boards (especially FREE ones!) are NOT democracies!  Free speech doesn't apply here and we don't get a vote!  And yes, sometimes power can corrupt, and if I believe the moderators are being unfair to me, then I have a personal decision to make about my time on this particular forum.

I think as women and as survivors of this disease have a wonderful opportunity to use situations like this to focus on what is really important and not sweat the small stuff (and I say that with the full understanding that I don't know what has transpired along these lines in the previous months/years). 

I am THRILLED the moderators permitted Debi to return to us because I felt she needed what the majority on these boards have to offer and feel that in very short time, Debi will be paying that support forward by helping someone else get past these very challenging obstacles in this journey BC takes us on.  I would have been extremely disappointed if the small band of merry-deleters had succeeded in not just censoring her (which by rules they may have had the right to do) but also in cutting her off from the support she needs.

As to the suggestions, the only one I can agree with (in terms of what's actually realistic for the moderators to take on and manage), is having your name show up if you report a post.  I don't believe in throwing rocks and hiding hands, and if you're bad enough to report a post, you should be big enough to show your name.  If you're reporting for reasons that are valid and rules-based, this should be no problem.

"Overuse" of the reporting feature is subjective.  If the names show, it will be clear who has way too much time on their hands and is abusing the feature.

It's useless to try and control the behavior of adults.  Asking moderators to make decisions based on whether or not someone "continues to visit an offensive thread" is just as overbearing as the people who continue to visit and report a supposedly offending thread!  One, I'm not sure it's technologically possible (do I really want to know if the moderators can/do track/monitor every thread I visit/read but don't post in?)  Let's not swing the pendulum all the way in the other direction trying to control the behavior of those who would desire to control our behavior.

I think that this situation, however unfortunate, was resolved in the best way possible, and if accountability and honesty/integrity in reporting behavior comes as a result, then at the end of the day, it was a good thing.

If nothing else changes from this, Debi is back here with us, with a fuller understanding of the rules, and getting the support and love and care from the community who will surround her as we walk this road together, and at the end of the day, that is the BEST thing!

Alaina

Barbe says ~ I don't see why free speech doesn't apply to this site...

Well I can only offer my opinion based on years of working as a moderator for various large and small internet forums.  Most of these sites are privately run by private citizens.  None of us pay a fee to post here.  We can donate at our personal discretion, but this is a service being provided free to us, being run by a handful (?) of people who may or may not be getting compensated for their time keeping the site operational.

Because it is private, it has a private set of terms of use that I suspect we had to agree to before being permitted to set up an account to access these boards.  Most of us gloss right past the terms of use and never give much thought to what we're agreeing to in an attempt to get our access and start posting.

And even with free speech being a hallmark of our personal freedoms in public America, it still does not mean one can yell fire in a crowded theatre or say one has a bomb in their suitcase with no consequences (and I am not implying Debi's post was of that nature).

As much as we would like them to be, online forums are not democracies.  They run/operate at the will of the person who can turn it off with the flick of a button (and then where would be? on another site run by someone else with the same power...)  We want things to be democracies as long as we believe our opinions and agendas are in the majority.  When we find out we're surprisingly in the minority, then and only then are we willing to bend to the discretion of those who hold the absolute power to make a decision.

I don't want to belabor the point, I just want to add perspective learned from years of observing all kinds of online behavior and group dynamics.  It doesn't matter what the theme, topic, or purpose of a discussion board is, the behavior/dynamics are the same across the net.

The only place you get free speech on the net is on the site you own/operate and run.  :-)

Barbe...I joined LA Weight Loss, but to be fair I pretty much learned to eat right (less!) and get some exercise.  I'm the one on the right btw and thank you!

PS:  I still don't agree that just anyone should be able to delete a comment...I'm just sayin'

It was Baywatcher that got booted. She is very upset, her email to me is heartfelt. She was only commiserating with a fellow sister and got the boot....so sad.

Cathi, I too, still come across that boobs' avatar. Too bad they can't delete it too!

I guess the real deleters aren't going to post here. I keep making comments to keep it at the top of the list.... 

I do think the software leaves a footprint.  Unfortunately, I don't think there is a lot of reviewing of deletions by the moderators.  I understand they have a big job, and perhaps they are underpaid -- but still...

On occasion the mods have restored deleted comments and "penalized" people who reported posts that didn't merit deletion.  But they haven't done this in quite a while.

Still, if we all email the moderators about baywatcher, maybe they'll restore her good standing AND her comments...

...still waiting for a deleter to own up...

I am beginning to believe that this board is running on automatic - why don't we hear anything back from the mods on this subject?  Clearly, a wide variety of people are upset and yet, we don't hear a peep from the mods.  The e-mails sent to the people whose posts are deleted are automated and canned.  I suspect that when people are banned, it is also an automatic process.  I suspect this board needs a little more attention than is being devoted to it.  JMHO  

PIP, you're on the right track, IMO.  I had a post "deleted by the community" once.  Nothing offensive in it, just an opinion that someone(s) didn't agree with.  It was reinstated the next day (I guess once the mods had a look at it).

Button pushers, SHOW YOURSELVES!  It's only fair.

Linda