Is Cruisers sailing forum losing it's way

[first wind]

Originally Posted by SimonV

Recently there seems to be more arguments than information in the posts. There was a time not that long ago when the hands on advice came from Cruisers passing on their experience, lately the laudest voice seems to be from keyboard worriers who parotphraze someone else written theory from the 70s or an out and out troll looking for a stupid argument. It's not helpful, especially for the newbee or even the experienced looking for help or conformation. What's the Answer?

Sent from my GT-N7105T using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

I have read, and even commented on, some of the previous posts but, I don't have time, unfortunately, to read everything. so, i'll just put in my two cents.

I don't think this site suffers from anything that the real world isn't also suffering from. in the past, people could hear other people's opinions, state their own opinions and even have polite, beneficial debate (an exchange of ideas and differing experiences that richens the knowledge base of those involved). now, everyone is so into their own views, methods, and ideas that people can't hear a differing idea without being offended by it and acting like a little playground.

it's a sad statement of humanity but, it's true. we don't need more moderation. draconian control is not the answer to man's problems. maturity and self moderation is.

we don't need big brother. we need to grow up.

we would all benefit from a polite exchange of ideas. you see what others have to say, consider it's validity in your situation, and either accept their idea or discard it. no anger or conflict needed. you will not find yourself agreeing with or adopting every different idea you hear but, you will definitely gain a greater insight of the issue being discussed.

stricter controls can't keep buttholes from being buttholes. all it can do is lessen the effectiveness of the internet. it's up to us to temper our responses so that all of us can continue to reap the benefits of a free exchange of ideas.

that's my buck fifty. of course, with inflation, it's probably worth about two cents.

[socaldmax]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

And there you have it ladies and gentlemen...moderating is an impossible job.

No, it's actually quite easy. At least it was for me on the diesel website. The rules were clearly stated, I simply enforced the rules at all times to everyone equally. I clearly explained to the offender how they broke the rules, gave them the requisite punishment based on past offenses and none of them could honestly say they were treated unfairly or harshly. This required the entire group of moderators to be on the same page, and we were, since edited posts were clearly left with the unedited text visible to all members and mods so that everyone could see exactly what was going to get you in trouble and what the consequences would be. It was totally transparent moderation. Rather than making decisions in private, the offensive example was left for everyone to learn from. For a lot of people, they don't quite see where the line is drawn in the sand. When you clearly define it with examples, they have no excuses or misunderstandings.


The rest of this nonsense about being offended by a mini skirt photo or editing ambiguous posts or forcing spell check on anyone was just politely refused. When it comes to matters of taste or sense of humor, we gave a wide berth. Anything that was intentionally rude (or could be interpreted as rude) was annotated as to why it was unacceptable and a PM sent. The overall tone of the board was very friendly and polite, which was the owner's intent. If a newbie asked a tech question, he'd get serious answers without any judgement, rudeness or snarky remarks.

[socaldmax]

Originally Posted by daletournier

Political correctness and aggressive bullying are two different things. And those that try to acuse people that point out another's rudeness or aggressiveness as being over sensitive are way of the mark. In regards to sucking it up, we'll it's not actually real life for all. I left school early and grew up in work shops ( mechanic) and laboring and as mentioned earlier worked in pubs for years, I know the difference between political correctness and aggression. Ive been punched in the nose and done the punching. The guys im talking about here aren't being politically incorrect they are being abusive, and I can assure you it isn't the same as having a discussion at the bar, bantering and hanging s..t on each other is normal in a bar ( guy ) type environment but aggression is aggression and it's real easy to be aggressive on a Internet forum.
From my perspective this thread isn't talking about political incorrectness, which I agree goes to far , this is more about showing a little respect for others that have a different view of the world than you. Bullying is bullying , and it's pretty easy to do from a keyboard when there's no direct consequence.

Sent from my GT-N7105T using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

I agree!!

[socaldmax]

Originally Posted by Mirage Gecko

You see that's the great thing you don't agree with me but I still think I'm correct but not necessarily that you are wrong although you say I am . No skin off my nose it is your entitled opinion.
Bullying that is another political correctness and as long as man and women have walked upright it has been part of life and will continue to be so as is aggression.Dont get me wrong I'm not saying it all should be condoned it is however a fact of life.I also spent a lot of years working in pubs including a few on the edge of the commercial waterfront so have seen my share of banter ,aggression and bullying.I either lived and dealt with it or moved on as I have had to do with the rest of my life.
But the more I think about what your are saying the more I am concerned that we have become so ????? that one could truly be upset by someone "bullying" on an Internet forum.

I was on another website and a single mother of 3 children would sometimes post for social interaction. An ex BF started a smear campaign and started calling her every filthy name in the book, then started talking trash about her children. He claimed they were all illegitimate, that one was gay, she was on welfare and section 8 housing, etc. Everything he could think of to degrade her.

The moderators did nothing, to my dismay. Soon, the vast majority of that website trashed her and bullied her and defamed her and her children every time she posted. It was sickening. I tried to defend her, and got nothing but flack, including from the mods (yes, it was that lousy of a website.)

I sent a PM to the owner of the website explaining to him that under recent anti-bullying laws, he and his moderators were equally culpable as the posters for allowing them to post those vile things without stepping in. If she chose to report the bullying, he was going to be in some really deep trouble especially over the libel and defamation of character. His response was to tell me to go eff myself and he closed her account. That was his solution. He left all of the evidence online, that's how bright this guy was.


There have been plenty of cases of suicides due to online bullying and plenty of other bad events, so being cavalier about online bullying is not a smart move. How about pretending you're sending an email to your mother. If you wrote to everyone else the way you wrote to your dear mother, (assuming you don't hate her for some reason) it shouldn't be mistaken for bullying.

[Prairie Chicken]

Finally, I do think we should report posts we find offensive. It is sort of our responsibility to help the mods. It is unrealistic to expect them to read word for word of every thread--perhaps a fate worse than death! So, to all you people out there who don't speak up when you read something amiss, do it. As I understand the moderation process, it is a group deal, and no one acts unilaterally, and we need to hold up our end of the line, too.

Good point, Ann. I tend to skip over offending posts, or chuckle at the stupidity of others, but I don't usually tag them. Helping the mods out makes sense.

I do like seeing the number of posts a member has, & how long he/she has been around. It's kind of like walking into that bar ... helps to pinpoint the regulars vs the newbies.

[Terra Nova]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

And there you have it ladies and gentlemen...moderating is an impossible job.

This thread has made this apparent.

Does it help anyone at all if admin instructs a fleet of moderators to censor, censor, censor until they do not get even one alert from the most ultra-sensitive of women or girlie-men, or just anyone with a chip on his shoulder? Is it possible to simply use the lowest common denominator? I really doubt it.

[socaldmax]

Originally Posted by first wind

i can seriously see her point. I think there is a difference between letting a beginner know exactly what they are taking on and telling them, directly, that they have no business even thinking about it. one is helpful and will help the beginner to make more informed decisions for themselves. the other is just taking a blanket dump on people who may or may not be starting off on the next great adventure of their lives.

you can let a person know what they have ahead of them but, you can't honestly tell a person what they have the capacity to achieve. only they can determine that.

Absolutely!

[s/v Jedi]

Some of the problems I've noticed:

For example, when somebody is told that the way some system on their boat is setup sucks, they start a fight like their life depends on it, without any reasoning or sense... like a red flag in front of a bull. I am very opiniated on most things but if you tell me that something really sucks on my boat then I want to know why and how it's done better. In these cases the mods have told me that I should write a prelude of a couple of sentences about how great their boat is and how well they sail them before making the remark. No thanks, this is not a political forum.

Members who are contributing a lot are often stalked on this forum by those who have called what looks like a Jihad on them. Every post is scrutenized in an effort to try to explain it in a way that makes it wrong or mean... when that is countered by logical reasoning, the fight is continued with a flood of pm's

I think this has stopped after I protested it to the admins but we used to have mods taking part in heated discussions and then continuing to get their way by moderating the thread (deleting posts or part of posts) to how they like it. That didn't go down so well with me. Mods who argue in a thread must ask another mod to moderate it. I believe that became the rule.

pm's. Somebody remarked that you can report pm's to a mod? That must be pretty new because I once posted a funny cat picture with the cat saying "What the F was that?! Where the F was the full word and I got PM's from a mod that were full of hatefull text and with so many times the F word in a bad way, instead of funny, that it was really out of control. It literally said that this was their right and with pm's anything can be said. The bad thing is that you can't block a mod for sending you pm's. Who mods the mods.

When somebody posts something that is clearly, without doubt, wrong, then we can't reply saying "you are wrong", which is considered too rude to post. I have had a countdown by a mod to a permanent ban, even if I tried to say it very nice. The reasoning given was that even people who are wrong must feel at home on the forum and that isn't possible when they are told they are wrong.
That's fine until it is about issues that can get people killed. I will not let that kind of things go unchallenged and when that counted to strike 2 for a permanent ban, I banned myself for a year voluntarily. I was told not to take that kind of posts seriously. Think of people oosting that it's okay to have only outdated flares etc.

The ignore function is broken. You don't see their posts anymore but you still see them quoted by others.

Then there are those who need to post how something should be done or handled while they have absolutely no clue; they have never done it themselves, they have had no education on the subject, they are wrong (often on purpose just as flame bait) and they get some sick kind of orgasm by posting such nonsense.... and it is allowed by the rules, even when done on purpose.

Then there is boatman... he drinks all your Tanquerey so steer clear of him

[Canibul]

14 pages ( so far) on a "Cruisers Forum", in a thread that has nothing to do with cruising, boats, or sailing. Has this forum lost it's way? Perhaps the answer to that would depend upon what the definition of " it's way" was to begin with.

Rename it Cruisers Therapy Forum?

As obnoxious as I am, I still only have two names on the ignore list. I consider that encouraging.

[sailorchic34]

On that dreamer thingy...

Some time , a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, I too was a no nothing dreamer who wanted to buy a boat and sail around the world. Mind you I always loved sailboats. So much so that my parrents gave me "Skene's Elements of yacht Design", way back in my teens. OK I was always a bit weird.

I sailed lazers in my teens and 20's and after getting sidetracked for 20 odd years, finally found myself living and coastal cruising on a sailboat. It was magical times.

Never did cross an ocean, but found that I liked coastal and river cruising quite well. I've nearly 8k miles under the keel over the last 13 years. Not lots, but then I found that I was quite happy just being on the water. I found that home was where the boat was.

I suspect that many of us were no nothing dreamers at some time. Yes the ocean will quickly separate the chafe from the wheat. But really if someone is set on sailing, we should be giving realistic support.

[Cheechako]

I love the latest pot showing up on occasion now; "unsubscribed".
It reminds me of a 2 YO throwing a tantrum. If you are not subscribing to that thread... do we really need to know?

[socaldmax]

Originally Posted by Island Time O25

My 2 cents' worth.

Being thick skinned in real life to other people's rudeness (over the years I often received a sage advice in many areas of life from the people whose every second or third word was an expletive so I often now try to separate the messenger from the message) I do not find the so-called online "bullying" to be a real issue, short of of course those situations where people out anonymous posters' real names, addresses, etc and/or show up in person on the people's doorsteps. Come on folks, if you can't handle a few snide, condescending, rude or just plain stupid remarks from a poster hiding behind some avatar and a fictitious name how are you going to handle a North Atlantic storm in a small boat?

I don't think you've seen real internet bullying. I haven't seen any of it on here. But if I repeated to you what I've seen posted on other websites, I think you'd reach for the phone to call your attorney, because what they said was straight up libel, defamation of character and abuse of the worst kind.

I never would have imagined people saying anything of the sort until I read it with my own eyes, and I've got a pretty good imagination. One guy I sincerely hoped his mother and employer got a chance to read the filth he was writing, just so they could disown and fire him, respectively.

As to political correctness and all which it entails, I am with those in this thread who advocate the minimal moderators' intrusion into the threads, again may be only to prevent thread drift or threats of physical kind or some such. Everything else is just a part of human existence - the ribbing, the pontificating, the denigration of others' preferences/choices etc. Having spent my early years in a politically correct totalitarian state (and having had family members actually jailed or threatened with a jail term for a political opinion) I am virulently libertarian and anti-censorship of any kind, including the enforcement of the "be nice rule". But that's me. Others of course have different opinions.

Yes, I do disagree. It's a slippery slope. Once you let people start denigrating others for their opinions, some people take it too far and you end up with extremely rude and then bullying. It's all a part of the same spectrum, and no two people see the same line in the sand, so the website needs clear, precise rules and to enforce them equally. Just because you're comfortable with a certain level of abuse doesn't mean everyone else should be subjected to it, regardless of your past experiences. Perhaps you'd prefer SA, that seems like a place where you can let it all hang out.

To sum up, CF to me is the greatest compendium of cruising and general nautical knowledge I have found to date. No amount of "bad apples" and nasty posts will change that, other then that such posts may influence some (many?) contributors to that knowledge to leave altogether or at least be less active. And CF being a private venture, albeit a non profit in nature, the cite owners/admins certainly have a stake in keeping the good information flowing in and the nasty stuff to a minimum. And hopefully this thread has moved us a little closer to accomplishing that goal.

Right after the bold part, you then explained exactly why that statement was wrong. Notice how I said "that statement" rather than "you." It's very easy to offer a dissenting view without personalizing it or denigrating others. All you have to do is care enough to make the small effort.

[Terra Nova]

Originally Posted by Canibul

...As obnoxious as I am, I still only have two names on the ignore list...

I have no one here on ignore but take pride in being on others'.

[socaldmax]

Originally Posted by Canibul

14 pages ( so far) on a "Cruisers Forum", in a thread that has nothing to do with cruising, boats, or sailing. Has this forum lost it's way? Perhaps the answer to that would depend upon what the definition of " it's way" was to begin with.

Rename it Cruisers Therapy Forum?

As obnoxious as I am, I still only have two names on the ignore list. I consider that encouraging.

The real measure of obnoxiousness is, how many people have you on their ignore list?

[socaldmax]

I've read every post in this thread, including boatie's, which were mostly about beer. Now he often has some good wisdom to impart, including about drinking, apparently, and he also posts quite a bit, even if it's not always on topic.


He reminds me quite a bit of another poster on a different website. He freely admits he had a pet dinosaur, invented beer, drinks more than his fair share of booze, posts some great pics of beautiful women, does a lot of interesting stuff for an octogenarian (photography of said women, wrenches on race cars, helps write articles and edits articles on chassis design and suspension dynamics, teaches IT at a local JC and resells used computers, etc) so he's a jack of all trades and will chase your daughter if you don't watch him closely.

However, he was derailing a lot of threads with his meandering posts so they decided to give him his own forum, to post anything he wanted to post and let him moderate it, mostly so he could move posts clearly in the "out there" genre into his forum, where anything could be discussed, from politics to beer to guns and sex with space aliens.

I'm suggesting boatie be given his own forum to postulate and pontificate and rule as he sees fit, and we can all get into an in depth discussion of beer there. It could be a subforum of the off topic forum. For the other guy, they put an easy password on the forum to keep the easily offended out. After all, if you go to the trouble to punch in a password knowing what's behind the door, you don't really have the right to complain when you find it.


I only mention it because it worked really well for the other forum, it was a waaay off topic forum that helped keep the other forums more tightly focused, and I only mention boatie because of the similarity in age and wide range of interest, although the other guy was the landlubber version.

It's just an idea, be nice! LOL