Open Letter to the CLink "Mods"
Friday, 21 June, a request for stories, anecdotes, opinions - content, was made in the Ragbrai group. In this request a rather polarizing athlete was mentioned. I offered up a story containing an opinion about the aforementioned individual and I labeled that person a cocksucker.
I was immediately told by the person requesting this content to make a "productive" contribution using "appropriate language" and remove my comment.
I have no idea who this "Melissa" person is, nor why she was asking for such content nor why she would have the authority to demand I remove my comment. I replied that I would not as I didn't see how anything in my story could be considered offensive, unless one happens to be among the legions of misguided Lance Armstrong fans. Also, I fail to see how labeling Lance Armstrong a cocksucker is any more egregious than the hatred flung in these forums on a daily basis towards drivers, pedestrians or even other riders.
My anecdote, the demand of retraction, which contained no example of how I acted irresponsibly, was removed as well as my reply. I made screen caps of these posts and will post them below.
A request for submissions was made, one was given and it was dismissed/erased. Perhaps this Melissa person should have stipulated that all submissions must be made in the spirit of the prevailing groupthink of the Chainlink, of kumbaya and community and such, that anything considered remotely offensive to those ideals will be stricken from the record.
My big question is just who is this Melissa, what authority does she have to ask for submissions and what would they be used for and on what authority does she have to strike posts from groups or forums?
The most interesting part of Melissa's reply to me is this: "Rants, bashings, and offensive language devalue Chainlink operations, alienate people from participating, and create tremendous barriers to our cultivating the widespread support - financial and otherwise - necessary to exist."
Perhaps Melissa should stroll around the Chainlink forum as damn near every thread devolves into in internet gang fight complete with rants/bashing/offensive language thrown at people who's contributions do not jive with the prevailing groupthink of the Chainlink. The gulag for any dissenters. The Chainlink may have over 9,000 but it's the same very few number of people participating on the forums at any given time of day, regulating the ideas being spread. If you ask me, this violates Melissa's informal Terms of Service.
If one tells me that I violated the "Terms of Service," please, try to find them and read them. You may find that if the ToS where globally enforced, content would dry up on the Chainlink and then all those advertisers might go away.
The Terms of Service appear to be written by Leah on 27 September 2008 and updated by Leah on 3 March, 2010. After my content was deleted, the Chainlink Mods Activity Group popped up signifying recent activity in that Group. This closed group identifies 7 members, but doesn't identify who they are. Since they appear to exist for the sole purpose of regulating and deleting MY content and no one else's, it seems reasonable to let me know who the moderators are.
Views: 733
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Doug Haynes on
-
Lame.
If forums are going to be moderated they need to be moderated in an open and even handed manner with clear and simple rules.
The rules for this forum are an overcomplicated joke that leave way to much room for interpretation. You want to have a forum with rules and moderation they need to be trimmed down to simple rules that are crystal clear as to what they say. Any rule that is over a couple of sentences or requires explanation is not going to be an effective rule.
The moderation on this forum is a bigger joke. People who contribute useful info are scolded or edited for not being nice or using strong language but others who contribute nonsense and bad information are allowed to run wild. You want to moderate you need to do it evenly across the board; I mean if Craig got deleted for the use of the word 'cocksucker' how am I even still a member here? This is not the first time that the moderation here has felt driven more by the moderators opinions about the person over what it is that actually got posted.
Here's the bigger thing I have to say about it; the world is not always a nice place and even the nicest people are not always nice. Try to moderate this forum until everyone is nice and it is free of conflict you are going ot have a very boring forum with very little traffic.
-
Permalink Reply by Craig S. on
-
Was I scolded because of the word "cocksucker" or was it "hoo-haa", or what? No rationale, other than I'm injuring the potential for commercial commerce, what ever that may be.
notoriousDUG said:Lame.
If forums are going to be moderated they need to be moderated in an open and even handed manner with clear and simple rules.
The rules for this forum are an overcomplicated joke that leave way to much room for interpretation. You want to have a forum with rules and moderation they need to be trimmed down to simple rules that are crystal clear as to what they say. Any rule that is over a couple of sentences or requires explanation is not going to be an effective rule.
The moderation on this forum is a bigger joke. People who contribute useful info are scolded or edited for not being nice or using strong language but others who contribute nonsense and bad information are allowed to run wild. You want to moderate you need to do it evenly across the board; I mean if Craig got deleted for the use of the word 'cocksucker' how am I even still a member here? This is not the first time that the moderation here has felt driven more by the moderators opinions about the person over what it is that actually got posted.
Here's the bigger thing I have to say about it; the world is not always a nice place and even the nicest people are not always nice. Try to moderate this forum until everyone is nice and it is free of conflict you are going ot have a very boring forum with very little traffic.
-
Permalink Reply by Melissa on
-
Hey gang: I'm a cyclist, volunteer, and one of a dozen site moderators for Chainlink. Let's take this off line, while I get the Director on the phone. Cheers :)
-
-
No, you've already taken something that you didn't like off line. Let's get this out in the open. Take it down again and i'll post the web archives I've saved.
Melissa said:Hey gang: I'm a cyclist, volunteer, and one of a dozen site moderators for Chainlink. Let's take this off line, while I get the Director on the phone. Cheers :)
-
Permalink Reply by Kevin C Dormant on
-
Why does this need to go offline? These seem like legitimate questions and concerns.
-
Permalink Reply by Mike Zumwalt on
-
Swearing is common among the forum but derogatory, direct name calling along with slight homophobic undertones probably should be removed. Stick to non descript terms in the future. Such as d-bag, fucktard,self gratifier... and what Doug said. I had a scantily clad pic of a female taken down on a thread featuring swearing but it was also reference to a post on another forum I post on. Keep calm and carry on.
-
Permalink Reply by Julie Aberman (Hochstadter) on
-
Posted here as well -
Hey Chainlinks,To answer some of your questions,Our policy has always been to err on the side of extremely light moderating and not to delete content or close threads as we are an independent social network based on community building, communication and sharing information among cycling enthusiasts in and around Chicago.In the last 5 years we've probably closed half a dozen threads, primarily over spam or nudity and only after exhaustive deliberation as a group, including myself and Lee Diamond, who has been our main moderator for the last 4 years.The rest of those in the mod group consist of volunteers with admin capabilities, including volunteer IT people, interns and others who help with building and maintaining our online community.What happened here was a mistake and it won't happen again.People with moderator capabilities include myself, Lee Diamond, Melissa, Garth (Globalguy), Frederick (Chi Lowe), Xiao (intern) and Ryan (Wigwam, intern), Joe Sak and Cezar and a few others with limited capabilities including Jeremy (JM) and Anne Barnes.I want to reiterate again what happened was a mistake, we always discuss things thoroughly before taking any mod action, and it won't happen again.
Groups
-
Critical Mass discussion
262 members
-
Chicagoland Beer Explora…
203 members
-
Chicago Randonneurs
269 members
-
Walk Bike Transit
63 members
-
British Bicycles of Chic…
172 members
© 2008-2016 The Chainlink Community, L.L.C.
Powered by
