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tipsyjourneyman
02-Jul-12, 11:42
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 Moderation Madness
TJ
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mod madness
just saw a mod getting bounced from a club for ejecting a member --
a wonderful polite gracious and contributing member --
who simply asked that he enforce the GK code of conduct against harassment & badgering, by
deleting a post that was about another Club member --
he did not delete the post --
he deleted the member who asked that he delete the offensive and
slanderous post.
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tipsyjourneyman
02-Jul-12, 12:48
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It's worse than I thought
Wow! That is terrible. Unfortunately the reality is, few are suited to wield authority but many find themselves in such positions, whether it be a moderator of an online forum, a duty manager at a store or prime minister of Australia. Well, I'm glad the mod got theirs in the end but it does little to erase the bad deed in the first place. Such a shame.
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and there are mods. . .
. . . who MUST PUT EVERYTHING IN ITS PROPER PLACE AND CANNOT STAND TO SEE AN-OUT-
TOPIC POST
in a thread that opened with another topic -- and they must remove it, for
That is something up with which they cannot put.
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and THEN there are the mods & founders who are gutless,
gutless wonders
who know what is right and what is wrong
but LACK THE COURAGE to do anything about it
until you point out that they are putting the survival of their Club and its forum in peril
by hesitating at deleting offensive, obscene, badgering, racist, harassing, intimidating, or
slanderous posts.
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Some Management Skills Required
Whether it's a business, a classroom or chess club some basic management skills are required. From the start, clear parameters for content and conduct must be set and maintained. How the owner, teacher or founder goes about doing this is "style" (or repertoire of techniques). My experience and observation with clubs and teams is that content and conduct are subject to unravel from the outset, but the founders and captains tend not to realize the extent of the erosion and/or change until it's well under way and then they attempt to put it back together through their personal "style". And sometimes their "style" is limited and not very helpful.
Shmash is correct when he mentions "gutless wonders" [whose] "LACK OF COURAGE" imperil the survival of the club. But the opposite- overbearing, abrasive, intimidating, belittling can be just as damaging.
Smaller problems are easier to correct than bigger ones. Smaller problems, if not arrested, will grow into bigger ones and setting on the bench and letting the club/team work out it's own difficulties to find themselves may have worked well for Phil Jackson with the Los Angeles Lakers, but it's not going to do much for the ordinary club founder and team captain.
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tipsyjourneyman
23-Sep-12, 10:52
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Interesting
And I do agree JC, but I'm just curious as to your idea of problems. Now we are all agreed that anything which contravenes GK's policies is a problem and has to be acted on swiftly. But the idea of content unravelling, how would you term this? To give the Club for Chess Openings as an example, there is many a thread in the forum which has naught to do with Chess Openings. Some mods may think this "off-topic". Is this content unravelling? Or jokes in the midst of a "serious" discussion. Is this content and possibly conduct unravelling? ( I know the Chilliman has some strong feelings on funnies inserted randomly into discussions, and as a mod of a different forum, I'd appreciate his weighing in as well.) I'm not challenging your statements or going on the attack, JC, I'd just like some expansion on your general themes. I think your short post contains many little seeds that could easily sprout into full-blown discussions of their own. So let's water them, fertilise them, and see what shoots!
-TJ
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Unraveling content and conduct
@tipsy: Thanks for the kind words.
Well, I think a lot of it is how much the Club's owner is willing to tolerate off topic discussions and disruptive conduct. A lot of clubs really have no other purpose in mind except to generate activity. It's clear that that is the purpose for GK, but at the club owners' level I'd like to think that there is something else than just to see how many posts their $20 can get their egos. So, clubs who consistently discourage off topic posts and disruptive conduct are less likely to get off topic posts and disruptive conduct among it's members. If you play content and conduct off with participation, well, that's the compromise you make. It's not rocket science.
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I'm always up for off-topic threads if the club charter permits them. I think variety and general discussion are good for bonding and getting to know each other a little outside chess (as much as you can in this virtual environment that is).
I'm not up for someone derailing a (semi-)serious topic by posting something totally irrelevant just to 'stir the pot' because they think it is funny do so.
I see the two situations I've listed above as being total polar opposites.
yes tipsy we had some disagreement (is discussion a better word?) on this 'over there'. I did not agree with a post of yours as it seemed to deliberately detract from the topic at hand and I deleted it. you opened up a topic called something like 'Off Topic' and there were three posts in it - I think it has been deleted now.
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I agree with a point JC alludes to in his last post - when it comes to clubs, quantity is not as important as quality. I would greatly prefer a free exchange of ideas and fun discussion in a safe environment with a few co-members as opposed to being lost in a huge club whose forum has too many meandering topics littered with off-topic irrelevancies and sniping.
quality beats quantity everytime!
if club rules permit meandering then members who like that sort of thing will be attracted.
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Well said, chilli! My thoughts exactly!
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tipsyjourneyman
26-Sep-12, 01:10
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One-Liners and other Things
Call it a disagreement Chilli. I have no problem with fruitful disagreements, in the words of the great American poet James Hetfield, energy is derived from both plus and negative. I thought the club captains forum, in the end, was just negative, when I first arrived it appeared to be only "positive": the few members that were posting appeared only interested in hearing their opinions parroted back to them in an endless cycle of back-slapping. When someone came along with, shock, horror, a contrary opinion, the mood swiftly changed and everything disintegrated from there.
I've already replied to much of what has been said in Chilli and JC's recent posts here over in the What's in a Name thread. So I'll end with this:
I don't think a savvy one-liner is ever de-railing, Chilli's Russ Meyer post is clear example of that. They are like a kitten on a rail-road, the only way they could ever cause a derailment is if the engineer slams on the breaks in an attempt to stop the train so he can tell the kitten off instead of ploughing right over it. (Apologies to cat lovers.) I know Chilli disagrees but we'll put that down to differences in individual style, after all, there's more than one way to skin a cat! (Apologies to cat lovers again!)
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