So Why Would a Thread Be Deleted ?

[Hud3]

My experience when I was a moderator was that some members "got" the explanation right away. A small minority just didn't "get it", even after repeated attempts to explain. I surmised that was because they weren't getting the answer that they wanted.

[ude123]

Originally Posted by David M

The fact is, we do provide explanations when a rule is violated. We are also volunteers who do not necessarily have the time to spend hours writing a summary of a decision as if we were paid Supreme Court justices.

As is life, many things are not black and white, therefore it is impossible to make rules which cover every possible situation. Many situations do indeed fall into that gray area where even the mods do not have a consensus as to which is the best path to take.

I don't believe anyone is asking for the mods to take 'hours' to write an explanation. Only asking for the subjective thinking that lead to the action taken. Simply referring to the rules does not provide an adequate explanation as to the thinking behind the action taken. Just an example(a bit different than the subjective rules enforcement of posts, but related) is the signature lines in certain members that violate the rules. Are the rules enforced differently for different members? Certain mods and some members seem to have signature lines that are longer than the 3 lines specified in the rules. Just asking???

[gettinthere]

It's the Apocalypse! The moderators took action!

"The horror, the horror" M. Brando

[sailorboy1]

It was a thread topic not that long ago: but it seems posters have gotten nastier and meaner overall lately. Yet there have been lots of threads about following the rules etc. I wouldn't think people needed rules to behave well!

Is CF getting members from other sites who are bringing along what they were used to there?

I know that I have written some threads lately and then decided not to post it becauseI could see it was going to cause me heartache as I got beat on. And of course I posted some that even though I tried to do in a way to learn what I wanted to, I failed in my wording and it just went wrong.

I'm starting to read less new threads and spend more time searching old ones for info.

[capngeo]

Originally Posted by TaoJones

Just so every member is aware, other than spam, Nothing is ever deleted! Not in the sense that it is irretrievable by the site staff. The question you should be asking is, "Why are some threads removed from public view?"

Actually, if every member would bother to read the Community Rules, they would already have a solid understanding of why we remove certain threads, or individual posts in threads, from public view. We're reviewing problematic posts / threads to determine if they should be restored or kept out of public view permanently, and our guidelines for making such determinations are all found in the Rules and the Terms of Service.

Every single person who has ever joined Cruisers Forum has checked the box that indicates they have read the Rules and agree to abide by them. It's funny how many people then turn around and ask, essentially, "Why can't I violate the Rules I agreed to abide by when I joined?"

Managing Cruisers Forum (which means Enforcing the Rules) is a fascinating study in the psychology of dealing with personality types and intellects that span the entire spectrum of possibilities. Unfortunately, sometimes it's worse than herding cats . . . it's herding the very few cats that are mentally challenged, given to violence, very slow learners, poor communicators, childish, willfully obstinate and / or clueless that wastes an incredible amount of the site staff's time and sucks the joy out of trying to keep Cruisers Forum the best sailing site on the internet.

TaoJones

Thank you for the re-direct to the rules. I can see that perhaps my wording of my thread may have appeared to be inconsistent with said rules. I AM aware of the rules, and meant no harm. My thread was meant to be more of a suggestion than a question, and the part that obviously spiked your ire was in fact an attempt to preamble the suggestion.

It is not hard to make the observation that firearms are a touchy subject, yet as evidenced by the polls, there is a significant portion of the membership that has interest. All I was suggesting is that a separate forum be created that is passworded to discuss self defense options among cruisers; with said password being given to all who SEEK to discuss the topic. Those that do not want to be involved could thus avoid the conversation and NOT be offended.

Now if it is the OFFICIAL position of the owners of this forum that the subject of self defense while cruising is taboo, FINE! Just please put it in the RULES!

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by John A

I'd like to suggest to the mods and/or Andy that just as there is an option to edit a post after you've submitted it, that a second option be added for the orginator of the post. A delete function. As we're reviewing the post for grammer, sometimes we look at what we've posted and realize that it may offend some people, or the tone sucks, and that was not our intent.

I think you'll find that already exists in/under the EDIT function... just that you've only got the same time limit to come to your sense's...

I've self censored a few times

[lorenzo b]

Hud3
When did quit being a moderator?
You can't just leave us alone here with these ninnies.
Some of these doddering fools make McCain look like a skateboarder.

[John A]

Originally Posted by boatman61

I think you'll find that already exists in/under the EDIT function... just that you've only got the same time limit to come to your sense's...

I've self censored a few times

Your right, it worked! you just have to select a conformation process.
Thanks

[David M]

Originally Posted by lorenzo b

Hud3
When did quit being a moderator?
You can't just leave us alone here with these ninnies.
Some of these doddering fools make McCain look like a skateboarder.

Hud is still here and quite active as an Adviser. No worries.

[lorenzo b]

Thank God, there is a Christmas.
Speaking of which, y'all must see True Grit.
The Dudeman is awesome.

[Pblais]

It was a thread topic not that long ago: but it seems posters have gotten nastier and meaner overall lately

It's mostly from the huge growth but is also seasonal. Winter solstice in the northern hemisphere usually adds to the problem. Extra moonlight plus all the down unders are in summer and having fun. Add any Christmas depression and extra drinking and guess where they all land - at their favorite hangout "Cruisers Forum". Collide those people with the extra new members thinking about boating and the two met with explosive results or so it appears. We still have dozens of threads not raising dust or causing problems.

We also have got a bit of a Facebook disease. People want to socialize with sailors (go figure). It adds a lot of BS to a lot of threads. It may not be nasty or totally outside the rules but it mostly is harmless nonsense (aka worthless). Several of these members are getting into a significant number of posts. It's not a rules problem but it waters down the richer content some members have grown to like.

From the member side we added the Report and Thanks buttons. The idea is to thank those that help a lot (so they might post more) and find the problems a little faster before they get to the second screen of flames. An untended thread going bad can get heated up in an hour or so. Sorting out the mess takes a lot of effort.

No way can the staff screen all posts but we do screen new member posts up to a cut off value just to help on the spam. It's more a "look like spam" or "don't look like spam" test. They have to be manually released.

There still is new stuff out there but with the large numbers there is some attraction much like a car on fire pulled over on the side of the road for the social comment stuff. People want to see what it is and toss a log on the fire. It bumps up the pointless posts and pushes down the ones with meat in them. It's hard to craft a rule to stop it but isn't really what we want.

We could perhaps look into a section for social comment and eliminate it from the portal. It just is hard to set up a section that does not follow all the same rules. I personally like to keep the rules simple and across the board.

Ultimately I would like to see a better way to kick up posts to the portal page based on a value score not just a new post being added. With watered down social content hitting the portal it looks like there is less stuff here because those threads grow faster and bump up more. We have a "debump" mod tool but to do it all by hand just isn't practical. The time required just reading and doing cleanup as well as a real post or two takes a lot of time.

Perhaps value based tied to the Thanks button might really be better. Golden oldies could come up and there is a lot of valid older material here on the technical side. If someone thought enough to send a thanks then it must have something in it worth reading.

We need to move along with change and it's clear we can't turn the clock back. The look of the internet changes. I'm hoping to see some newer technology to make spaces like CF more interactive. Perhaps more adaptive to your personal tastes. It would target ads better too. Premium for pay content always has been thought about but never really proposed or detailed in any way.

[RainDog]

Originally Posted by Pblais

We could perhaps look into a section for social comment and eliminate it from the portal. It just is hard to set up a section that does not follow all the same rules. I personally like to keep the rules simple and across the board.

Agree. One of the main reasons I mostly stopped reading, lets call them "other web sites similar to this one", is having to wade through 50% or more political content that has little or nothing to do with boating. It just undermines my entire enjoyment of the good content that is there.

The fairly restrictive rules of CF keep it much more on topic. I think the moderators here do a great job of sticking to the spirit of the rules.

Threads that are pointless, even if sailing reacted, should be closed. This is very much a judgement call as to what is pointless, but that is why moderators are not self-appointed and there are a group of them.

If you want to discuss politics, religion (anchors), or deride your fellows, there are quite a few forums similar to CF that will give you much more leeway.

[capngeo]

Originally Posted by RainDog

religion (anchors).

Really?

[TaoJones]

Originally Posted by capngeo

Thank you for the re-direct to the rules. I can see that perhaps my wording of my thread may have appeared to be inconsistent with said rules. I AM aware of the rules, and meant no harm. My thread was meant to be more of a suggestion than a question, and the part that obviously spiked your ire was in fact an attempt to preamble the suggestion.

It is not hard to make the observation that firearms are a touchy subject, yet as evidenced by the polls, there is a significant portion of the membership that has interest. All I was suggesting is that a separate forum be created that is passworded to discuss self defense options among cruisers; with said password being given to all who SEEK to discuss the topic. Those that do not want to be involved could thus avoid the conversation and NOT be offended.

Now if it is the OFFICIAL position of the owners of this forum that the subject of self defense while cruising is taboo, FINE! Just please put it in the RULES!

My post was not directed to you, and you alone, in any way, capngeo. Your only connection to what I posted is the title you placed on your thread-opening post.

There will be no separate section, password-protected or not, set aside for those who want to discuss personal protection while aboard a vessel, and not subject to the CF Rules that govern every other area of the site. Sorry, it's just not going to happen.

Would you, if you were a member of a site where the subject is Personal Protection, propose that they set aside a separate area just for those who want to limit the discussion to that subject, but restricted to those who wish to discuss it in the context of sailing and cruising? If your answer is "yes," then by all means do so . . . perhaps you could encourage anyone else here who feels the need for such a specific niche to follow you over there.

My comments in post #9, above, are meant to apply to every subject discussed on Cruisers Forum, not just those that generate the most heat and inflame some people's passions. And since you mentioned putting verbiage in the Rules that lets members know that some particular subject is off-limits on Cruisers Forum, that will never happen,either.

Why not?

Because there is, literally, no subject that is forbidden for any reason, nor will there ever be, as long as it is on topic (Sailing and Cruising) and the give-and-take among the members is kept within the Rules.

It's just that simple, really.

TaoJones

PS: Oh, by the way, even the most scientifically-based poll, rigorously conducted by professionals with vast experience in polling, is subject to interpretation, bias in how a question is framed and margin-of-error (among other problems) and should never be considered the last word on anything. Even those who answer one way on one day may answer completely differently another day.

The "polls" members see at Cruisers Forum should never be confused with the terms "scientifically-based" nor "rigorously conducted by professionals with vast experience in polling."

They are (how shall I put this?) . . . completely worthless.

[Tellie]

Originally Posted by David M

The fact is, we do provide at least brief explanations when a rule is violated. We are also volunteers who do not necessarily have the time to spend hours writing a summary of a decision as if we were paid Supreme Court justices.

As is life, many things are not black and white, therefore it is impossible to make rules which cover every possible situation. Many situations do indeed fall into that gray area where even the mods do not have a consensus as to which is the best path to take. We do discuss situations and then do what we think is the right thing. What more can we do?

If you want perfection from the mods then you had better be willing to pay for it, because you are not going to get perfection each and every instance from people who do this for free in their spare time.

Nobody is telling you that you are obligated to visit this website. You do have a choice if you do not like the way things are.

Agreed. I know that CF is a benevolent dictatorship. I accept that every time I sign on. But in fairness, which doesn't aways have to apply, the above statement was the same concept which I think others wanted applied to gun threads. A slight re-wording of the same concept... Nobody is telling you that you are obligated to visit the gun threads. You do have a choice if you don't like the subject.
Other than that, Merry Christmas to all!