Fellow "deletees"

some or one?

Medigal, comments that do not break the "Rules of Conduct" (http://community.breastcancer.org/help/rules) are fine, and welcome. We certainly cannot all agree on the same issues. As I know you all appreciate, the primary mission here is to provide support and understanding to one another, especially as it relates to the breast cancer experience. So, "negativity" means not breaking the rules you all have agreed to upon when joining the community. If you are repeatedly angry, hurt, or frustrated by a poster, please feel free to contact me at any time. We can hopefully help to 'bridge the divide' constructively.

Thanks AnneW for your kind support!

Misfit - great idea! Will try to get activated!

Prettyinpink-  posters who "falsely" report ARE penalized. Albeit, it is not always visible to the community at large, but it is happening. We can try to make this process more transparent. It is a good suggestion. We are doing alot 'behind the scenes'.

Iron, send your comments to my email if you would like (mjenkins@breastcancer.org). Sorry that your message didn't work! Frustrating. Also, I too hope that this new attempt works. I'm hopeful that if we build in more communication we can make it work. I've been doing this for over 10 years, and we always have sticky issues. I hope that we can grow together though.

As for log-ins, please limit the log-in to one. It is the rule, and a real nuisance to track down. Thank you for your understanding!

Best to All,

Melissa

Melissa:  I know you mean well but you have missed the entire point I was trying to make.  If "I" am angry, hurt or frustrated by any poster, I am an adult and can deal in a mature manner (following the rules) with her myself.  I would never be the type who would go running to whine to anyone else.  It's not who I am.  I respect your being our Moderator but I do not think you should encourage posters to come running to you.  This gives the "deleters" an excuse to cause problems again.  If they could not "tattle" to you, their ammunition to hurt us would be gone.  Make your job easier by letting us handle our own problems on this board.  If we are strong enough to cope with bc, I think we should be strong enough to handle any problems we encounter on this board.  Thank you any way for caring.  I hope you don't take this as a negative response.  I "positively" know my own strengths.

I would ask that all be patient with our software system. I am a programmer and it is not a quick process nor an easy one to make "some" of the changes that are being discussed.  As passionate as we all are, at times we have a knee-jerk reaction to what others may say. We are fighting a mighty beast with BC and I know that I can turn into attack mode quicker than before BC. We're in fight mode 24-7. I've seen many respond to someone's post in that way. When we are typing instead of looking into someone's eyes or hearing their tone of voice it is much easier to do. We're grown women, we are smart and strong, we can respond to others and express ourselves without being rude or mean. Sometimes a smilly face at the end of a statement doesn't remove the sting of the words. The last thing anyone here wants to do here is hurt someone else. I have enjoyed our thread and hope the new one is up and running soon. Although I may not agree I have learned so much from so many about my government and how it works. The laughter and jokes are such a blessing at the end of a long day.

Even with some of the changes suggested, we are still going to be subject to people who "report'" for no other reason than they can. Software cannot be created to think and judge. We may think that a computer is a powerful machine with all kinds of capabilities but in truth it is only a board of switches which understand ON and OFF and YES and NO. With the volume our moderators deal with, it would be impossible for them to give each thread the attention we're asking for.

Lets go again! I'm with Blue, Medigal, Pretty, Misfit and the others on this page and our deleted thread that have suggested a new thread and when it is up and running, let them attack again. We'll start another after that and then another and then another. If BC can't beat us, we can't be beat! 

Thanks Melissa ... I know you'll do your best!

hugs,

Bren

I didn't visit the now-deleted thread, but I'm sorry to see this problem happen yet again.  One thing I've never understood about this forum is the lack of the LOCK button.  Any free bulletin board script has this feature.  phpbb is just one example.  The mods can put a lock on any thread that gets heated.  The thread remains, but no new entries can be made. 

As for the 'reported by community' feature, I think there is ONE thing we can ALL agree on, and that is we don't like spammers!  This feature is essential for keeping out spam.  Yet, it's clearly being used for other purposes.  Raising the threshhold could be part of the answer.  With 80,000+ members, surely a higher threshhold than 5 can keep the spammers at bay and at least make it more difficult for the abusers to squelch conversations that commit no offense.  I'm quasi-geeky but not a programmer, but I'd guess that this would be a easy thing for a programmer to change.  

I'm also wondering if there might be an option for 'moving beyond cancer' to be available after making X numbers of posts?  Part of the abuser problem is the difficulty in keeping them out.  Banning works just one username at a time.  These bozos can recreate themselves an infinite number of times.  How about making the 'moving beyond' area available for people when they achieve 100 posts?  I would hope a programmer would see that as something quickly achievable, and for the rest of us, we'd have 100 posts to see what kind of colors a person has.  Even hiding behind a keyboard, our words truly do reveal much about us.  I think this feature could potentially provide a safer haven for the oldtimers who like to have these lively discussions. And for those who want to abuse the 'report' button, they'd have to work a lot harder to do achieve their nefarious deeds.

Lots of good ideas.  I think Melissa is checking in here throughout the day, so she should be able to see all the suggestions.

Edited:  typos

Hi All, 

I really like the idea of a "lock' function. I really think we would have a problem limiting folks from entering the Moving Beyond forum, as people come here at all different stages (before diagnosis, at diagnosis, during treatment, post-treatment, etc.).  Really appreciating your suggestions!

Melissa

Sounds good!

Maybe we can add profession to this line?

"Bottom line, please do not put a person, or category of persons, down based on their beliefs (i.e. religious, political), or based on their background."

>>I really think we would have a problem limiting folks from entering the Moving Beyond forum, as people come here at all different stages (before diagnosis, at diagnosis, during treatment, post-treatment, etc.).  <<

I was using the 'moving beyond' forum just as an example.  It could be the circle the wagons forum, or a brand new one just for women with their big girl panties on.  Price of admittance:  100 posts.  

My suggestion is based on a presumption that much of this problem is coming from people with brand new usernames.  ....perhaps another angle to get to the same place would be to restrict someone's ability to 'report' a post until X number of posts.  

It doesn't do any good to make a rule that can't be enforced. To enforce the rule would mean that each URL was checked to prevent duplicates. It is obvious (because some have multiple user ID's )that the software does not do this now.

Medigal, the only reasons one would want mulitple sign-ins are:

1. Wanting to cause trouble

2. Being banned because of above.

I agree about rules you can't enforce. But spammers still come here even though it's against the rules. When they come, we report them. Now, we don't report people with multiple id's because it's not against the rules. If it were against the rules, I would have no problem reporting them.

Actually, there are some legitimate reasons why someone might have more than one sign in name.  For example, because the chat room sometimes freezes, I have "flash 2" which allows me to go back into the chat room until eventually, the system figures out that "flash" has closed out.  This happens to many of the chatters and most of the chatters I know, have additional names. 

Scenario 2:

A much beloved BCO'r, now angel. from the chat room was stalked by someone.  She ended up going through 4 names trying to avoid unpleasantries while she was dealing with major chemo and was in hospice. She actually had someone get their jollies emailing her and stalking her telling her she didn't deserve to live, why didn't she die and get it over with. She found she had to post under a different name so she could be on the boards at all. Anyone who was around at the time know how difficult the entire situation was.

I do agree it's a problem when people block others because of disagreement. I know Melissa has been working on it for quite some time and so far there just doesn't seem to be a perfect solution.

hugs to you all.

Kadeeb - that's the problem, sometimes you can't. But sometimes it's perfectly obvious. Flash - I don't do chat so was unaware of that problem. And your second scenario is perfectly dreadful. Why in the world wasn't the instigator banned?