Orwellian... by that I gather you mean totalitarian?

Surely you jest... the definition of totalitarianism states terms such as "not tolerating parties of differing opinion" and "exercising control over the freedom, will, or thought of others".

Since when is merging two back-to-back posts, without changing a single word of either one, in any way influencing, silencing or limiting people's opinions & thoughts?

Back-to-back posts can become a real problem - clearly you don't remember what one member did in DCMM's "Was It You?¿?¿?" thread.

Allow me to show you:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...83#post1149283

Note - 10 posts back-to-back (they continue on the next page). This same poster continued the behavior later in the thread with varying amounts of constant back-to-back replies. I wasn't the only one having difficulty with this behavior either! Put back a few posts? I'm only talking about merging posts that are directly one after the other from the same poster. So the text itself does not "jump" over any other posts from other posters. The text is still in the exact same order that it was before the merge, just without the extra signature and post header in-between.Point taken, and there are definitely times when I see a pair of back-to-back posts and ignore them too... especially when a good amount of time has passed between them (so they are likely in very different contexts). However, as you can see from the example above, it can get a bit ridiculous at times as well.So you consider a "clean" merge to be an edit? Really? Your words are not being changed, not one bit. If the content remains exactly the same, why would you be so upset? I guess I'm just trying to understand what is so troubling about it.

Please understand that I'm happy that you guys are voicing your concerns - that's a very good thing... and I am very open to addressing those concerns... and perhaps adjusting my moderation style where it makes sense to do so. I just want to understand the basis of the concerns first.

 

Subtracting responses of posts thanking people for actually posting this thread has many more views than posts, so either nothing is wrong or people are hesitant to post. Based on the Dragon drama alone I'd say people are reluctant to post, history has shown on NAM there is a lot of backlash for making such statements. But I'm also sure there are a fair number of people just curious as to why the question was asked in the first place, I know I was.

The MINI community has its own challenges, while they affect the content of NAM; it is nothing wrong with NAM itself and therefore doesn't apply to this thread IMO.

NAM goes through cycles, slow, busy, happy, sad; end of winter usually brings about a grumpy tone from a lot of people

I've had many conversations on other boards and at club meets all around the country, there are quite a few people who are so intimidated by NAM they wont even post and only ever look at info linked from their local board. Others have gotten so frustrated that they only post on the local boards. For some people its about finding there niche for some people there are some legitiate grievances.

There is also a prevailing attitude that NAM is over-bearing. While not necessarily how I feel, I'm also very attune to the fact that other boards I'm on do a very good job of the members self moderating. The operate in an enviroment where people know where the line is don't cross it, but also respect it and approach it reasonably. By reasonably I mean priority is given to fixing puncutation when there are threads (mods are posting in) that open with photos of someone giving me the middle finger and bashing flaming threads are allowed to continue for several hours.

When someone is removed for their behavior all their posts are deleted not just the infracting ones. This has also on occasion meant much positive conent was lost.

What is and is not a sticky generally seems to be arbitrary. And this relates to the search function as well there are many times that how to's are not stickeied and repetitively bumped and linked to because they cant even be added with a link to the thread entiled "How to's" Yet a moderator can sticky their ownthreads on their own product in that forum instead of placing them in the proper vendor section. As you can see this makes the line very much so ambiguous instead of commonly respected.

I understand all the guidelines are open to judgement calls however inconsistant judgement IMO generally makes for more work for the moderators because there is less understood respect of boundaries, as well as playing into peoples hyped up fears of being banned for slightly stepping over the line. Balance and consistancy don't often feel as though they are present.

Within the last few months more noticably there has been a growing business overtone to NAM. I neither think this is a good nor bad thing. However I do feel that by having a vendor feature and allowing vendors additional privliges that NAM is even if indirectly endorsing these vendors, which I personally feel does carry a certain responisibilty to the community as well asproviding the service for the vendor that they do pay for.

Oh and I REALLY REALLY miss the members list it makes it much harder to find someone I want to PM or if I know they started a thread but they haven't posted recently having that instant acess to finding them by name was muchmore user friendlyand far less time consuming and more accurate than the feature provided in the advanced search.

Now I've been on NAM for over two years, not long as many but also longer than quite a few as well. There are still new people coming along that I am enjoying talking to and there are people I've been talking to from the outset. My own MINI experiance has been a very bumpy one and I am realistic of the fact ther may be a day when I no longer have a MINI however i really do not think that that would cause me to leave NAM because there is a good base community despite the few that detract from that. And hey,my buddy list is still growing and certainly isn't comprehensive of all the people whose company I enjoy on NAM.

 

oh yeah, i was going to say something about the member list. it was such a good thing.

 

no, that's not what I meant at all. I find it odd to have someone going behind me and doing anything to my posts but read them. By Orwellian, I mean Big Brother.

I don't disagree, but using an extreme example like that to justify doing it as the norm here with two singular posts is quite a leap. If someone abuses it, sure, fix it. It's the normal day to day stuff that bugs me.....like I said, OCD.

 

So if a strike means nothing (other than if you get two of them and are banned) what is the best means of delivering a consequence for actions on the site? I guess what I'm trying to say is...we have to set expectations on the level of behavior we want on the site (ie - PG13). If people don't meet those expectations what should happen? Ideally I would like to have no site guidelines because everyone could be depended on to post responsibly but my experience on the site indicates otherwise. So what do we do?

In the old days we used to issue a strike for behavior and remove the post. Now we've been posting a follow up in the thread to indicate that a strike was issued to that person, why it was issued, and either noting that in the original problem post, or removing the post (depending on what the issue was). My thought is that if we call people out on their actions in a public way then that not only delivers the consequence to the member but also archives that consequence for all to see (and hopefully reinforce the expectations of what we would like to see on the site).

 

yeah, what he said. sometimes I double post, because I had an afterthought, and don't feel like editing.....just like sending 2 emails back to back, I do that all the time.

 

This thread was created because in the Moderator discussion, it was challenged that such a thread not would be allowed to exist without editing or deleting comments. Hopefully we are proving that it most certainly can. Motor On, I can understand that is your perception, but you are mistaken. At least speaking for myself, I would never give priority to minor clean up over dealing with a problem thread...

But I have to know about the thread in order to do something about it. Nobody here has the time to read every single thread & post that gets posted on NAM, so we depend on people actually using the Report Post button () so that we are alerted to where problems exist!

Keep in mind also that not all of the admins & moderators can be around 24/7... which is why Mark has been trying to expand the Moderator team (carefully) so that more people are available to readily deal with problem threads.Generally not true. In the vast majority of cases, when a user is banned, the user cannot come on NAM any more but their old posts remain intact. The only times I've seen the "hide all posts from this user" feature used since I've been an admin is for particularly troublesome cases, such as spammers. Sndwave went off on a rant last summer in OT about this (after receiving a strike from the admins), stating the same thing you just did, and Mark set the record straight with this (note, this was all before I was made an Administrator):Perception is not always the same as reality!I agree that there needs to be better clarification on when to use the Sticky feature, and the Moderation Team is in active discussions now on this and many other topics.So do I. I know it was disabled to improve server performance on the old server... now that we're on shiny new hardware, I'm still hoping that we can reinstitute it soon - I've asked Mark about it before and I'm still hoping it will come back. Yes, it was.

 

Be careful...perception is still valid, even if not considered "reality". I feel that a perception of how things are done or said is equally as important as what the intent was. Don't dismiss those concerns so quickly, don't be so quick to make comments like this:

for that perception is reality for that individual..have some understanding and respect for that member and their perception...it must be coming from somewhere.

 

I remember somethig like this being done in the earlier days over at Audiworld. I do agree that calling out people on their actions does merrit the consequense for all to see.

Great thread...

 

The thing is, Dan... using a word like Orwellian is very suggestive of a much more sinister intent - the very definition of the word does imply totalitarianism!

It seemed like a real stretch and unfair characterization to me, even if that was not your real intent.Understood guys - I'll try to back off on that, but there will still be times where I use it when the thread is hard to follow as a result.Point well taken... and I'm hoping it's through open discussions like these that we can deal with these types of misperceptions and put them to rest... as well as addressing the real problems that could use some changing.

The problem with perceptions like these (and not addressing them properly) is that they spread like wildfire, and people will tend to believe the word of mouth without checking for themselves. The problem is compounded when it is never discussed and addressed, because time has a way of helping these rumors spread. Take my example above - sndwave posted very boldly last summer that this would happen. Clearly he believed it at the time. Mark may have set the record straight in that thread, but over a year later, another long-term member (Motor On) posts the same thing.

These concerns should always be brought up to us - instead of letting the rumors fly!

 

i hear what your saying in regards to expectations and what not. what to do? i really have no idea. considering this is a pay free site i cant see people caring to much about strikes. i like the calling people out thing though. a lil public embarassment can work.

 

the thing to focus on is not "changing" how people see things, or how they come to see those things, but to realize that no matter how hard you struggle, those perceptions will form, and will spread. That is just the way it is, embrace that, accept that. People are going to trust the words of their friends, try to fight that and you dig yourself a grave. Public opinion is a serious thing, even if it is wrong as seen by an outsider. Just ask politicians or CEOs, etc.

Maybe change how you look at those perceptions and how you deal with them or try to manage them. Try to put yourself into the shoes of the member...or situation, etc.

Let people have their perceptions, even if you disagree, just try to understand it and help bring the light into the situation without coming across in an over controlling way.

Then, when it is all done, we can all go to Disney Land, or go for a drive on the Dragon, Eastern or Western!!! I just wanna have fun.

 

I am well aware of the need to report post and have made use of it in the past (even within the last week) however I'm also not here to tattle either, and it is frustrating to see a thread in which moderators are reading quoting and posting in not recieve the proper attention. I understand that not every thread can be read beforehand but I did expect the shorter threads would at least be read when a moderator was posting in that thread.
I understand now that prehaps that may not always be the case; however my comments are not entirely unfounded either, as there is a reason that many OT game threads were restarted when the posts and consequently the threadshe started were removed. And as evidanced by the threads being restarted it shows other people felt there was enough content for the spirit of the thread to continue. So I am operating off of more than just rumor, regardless of weather or not the policy has since changed (which it appears it has).

Understand as well that, I am aware that NAM is constantly evolving and growing and I expect to see hiccups along the way much as the MINI community saw a few months ago.

 

Ok...I'm gonna throw down something to make your head spin.....



your perception is your reality I didn't mean it in the way you perceived it, but alas, that was how you took it. The same as Motor On stated....

 

Thanks for reminding me about this. It was a performance pig on the old server but now that we are on the new one I've re-enabled it. You can find the link in the Main Menu.

While you are looking at the Main Menu be sure to move your mouse over the links for the Review system. It now gives you a little pop-up telling how many product/vendors and the number of reviews in each category. Be sure to add some products and reviews when you have the chance. We review all of them but I get notified via email when something is added and I've been approving these as quickly as I get the email.

Mark

 

I understand... although in some cases, you might see something as "over the line" but a moderator may read the same thing and not have felt that way. Each of us has a different level of "filter" for these sorts of things. Why, only a few weeks ago, I had a member report a post and be very upset that we would allow the word "badass" to go unchecked. This was followed up by an email conversation back and forth, and we basically had to agree to disagree.

All I'm saying is, even if a Moderator is in the thread, it still serves a purpose to report the post anyway. All post reports are confidential, only moderators get to see it (even the poster that you report is not notified).I have never seen the policy be anything else since I first became a moderator (again, before administrator) back in early 2006. I'm curious - which specific banned users have you witnessed this for? (Yes, I understand that NAM Site Guidelines do not normally allow discussion of banned users, but I believe this thread is a suitable place to discuss it.)There is one key difference though... I have a dictionary to back up my perception of you using "Orwellian", but last time I checked, there was nothing about "Are all posts from banned NAM users deleted?" in it. Yay!

 

Edge, STEP AWAY from the dictionary...this is the interwebnetz for goodness sake

no one likes to be quoted the dictionary, at least that is my perception, haha.

 

LOL... understood... but if we can't rely on the actual definitions of words when we're in a discussion, then the discussion breaks down. We should be able to say what we mean, and when others misinterpret what we say based upon the words we use, whose fault is it?

I'm not suggesting that we always have to look up every word we use (sheesh!), but when a misunderstanding occurs over the use of a word (as I did with Dan) then I think it's fair to clarify it, which is why I originally said:Besides, I don't keep a paper dictionary around - the "interwebnetz" has perfect online ones for that need.

 

thanks for proving my point Haemish!!

I'm sure we can write a script that will post the dictionary.com entry for any word we choose....that will save you a ton of time

 

are you a Jr. High English Teacher?

I say, throw the definitions out the frickin door and let's have fun!!!!

 

Forgive my delurking but I prefer the Urban Dictionary myself. I try to learn a new word from it every day

 

If you use a word, especially a word like Orwellian, in a manner that is not the actual meaning, you have to be prepared that some people are going to see the word for its real meaning.

Don't go blaming people for interpreting words by their actual meaning! Sheesh!

That's why I tried to clarify with Dan by mentioning totalitarianism. I won't apologize for having a grasp of the real meaning of the word when I saw it.

But aren't we getting a little sidetracked here? I thought the original concern on this point was the back-to-back post merging. I already conceded that I'd try to back off from it...

 

2. blame

to put all of the consequences unto another person. Usually to get yourself out of trouble.
Teacher "Who poo'd all over the floor?"
Child, "I blame Jimmy!"

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwellian

again....Haemish - your interpretation != everybody's interpretation. You asked what I meant, I told you, yet you want to belabor the point that by your source, I'm wrong.

The mere fact we are arguing about the word is silly....like "It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is"

 

Exactly my point. I was being blamed for believing that Dan meant "Orwellian" when he said "Orwellian". Somehow you guys make it sound like all of the "consequences" are on me.