Murphy Siding What part of* speak for yourself* don't you get?
Murphy,
I am really glad that you started this thread, Taking your current concerns into a comprehensive contemplation of things we've "experienced" in the past suddenly shines a new light on certain aspects of forum politics.
I can recall back when you were a moderator, and a certain railroader would make snide comments to me, and if I dared return the favor to him, you would frequently take the initiative to delete my retaliation from the board, while leaving his original provocations intact.
It appeared at the time that you were using your semi official status to show favoritism and protect one of your personal friends. (Which you generally denied) .
Now with more of your personal feelings on the table, it appears far more likely that your prior actions were based upon fear that the "railroaders' would pick up their toys and leave if forced to endure the same sort of treatment they dealt out.
It finally makes sense. Thank you.
schlimmI think if we can all be civil to each other (in both directions) it would help. That means non-railroaders not saying the railroaders are ignorant, etc. And railroaders should hold back on the insulting terms they seem to feel they have license to use concerning non-railroaders, such as NIMBYs, Darwin material, foamers, lawyers, educators, etc.
+1
Convicted One Murphy Siding What part of* speak for yourself* don't you get? Murphy, I am really glad that you started this thread, Taking your current concerns into a comprehensive contemplation of things we've "experienced" in the past suddenly shines a new light on certain aspects of forum politics. I can recall back when you were a moderator, and a certain railroader would make snide comments to me, and if I dared return the favor to him, you would frequently take the initiative to delete my retaliation from the board, while leaving his original provocations intact. It appeared at the time that you were using your semi official status to show favoritism and protect one of your personal friends. (Which you generally denied) . Now with more of your personal feelings on the table, it appears far more likely that your prior actions were based upon fear that the "railroaders' would pick up their toys and leave if forced to endure the same sort of treatment they dealt out. It finally makes sense. Thank you.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Murphy Siding Ya got me man. It's all a big conspiracy, and I'm the grand pooh-bah behind the curtain. My cover is blown. I was so busy setting up my plan for world domination (and a shot as the villain in the next Batman movie ) that I plum lost track of who I was dealing with. Where do I send your trophy?
It really IS a wonder that a person of such maturity once was moderator of this board.
If you ever thought of me as being mature, you missed the boat!
The forum has a rule against personally attacking people and a rule against posting off topic comments. But anyone can feel personally attacked even if no personal attack is made. That is their own perception. People can feel insulted when no insult was intended. The rules can't do anything about that.
So when people “feel” insulted just because someone differs with their opinion, I suggest they look at their own self as the possible source of the problem. I have known people that take offense very easily when no offense was intended. Cultivating a susceptibility to being offending can be a means of empowerment.
I have noticed that on the forum, people supposedly “in the know” can seem to feel insulted when somebody simply disagrees with them.
Then others smell that feeling of insult, band together, and multiply the sense of outrage about the imagined insult. Then this can cause the aggrieved group to mob the thread with snarky off topic comments just to try to provoke the person who will not agree with them.
This, of course, is classic trolling and violates the forum rule against off topic comments, and also the one against personal attacks if the comment goes that far, which they often do. Obviously, the objective is to provoke the one who fails to agree into lashing out and raising the temperature in the hope of spooking the moderators into locking the thread.
The funniest part is that the little mob of trolls engaging in this tactic never believes that they are trolling. To them, the troll is the person whom they imagine to have insulted them by not accepting their opinion.
Convicted one,
Re; the paragraph I highlited.
If I may speak in Murphy's defense, I was aware of what was happening when those posts were being frequently deleted. Moderators were being ordered by the IT man in charge of the forums to delete them. Seems there were some people crying to him, and he just got plain tired of hearing it and put out that order. I'm not a liberty to say much more, but a few moderators quit over it. The guilty parties know of whom I speak. That's why we are now down to Steve and Angela as moderators.
Norm
EuclidThen others smell that feeling of insult, band together, and multiply the sense of outrage about the imagined insult. Then this can cause the aggrieved group to mob the thread with snarky off topic comments just to try to provoke the person who will not agree with them. This, of course, is classic trolling and violates the forum rule against off topic comments, and also the one against personal attacks if the comment goes that far, which they often do. Obviously, the objective is to provoke the one who fails to agree into lashing out and raising the temperature in the hope of spooking the moderators into locking the thread. The funniest part is that the little mob of trolls engaging in this tactic never believes that they are trolling. To them, the troll is the person whom they imagine to have insulted them by not accepting their opinion.
Bucky, your post seems uncharacteristically emotional of you.
The realization that the General Forum was being run with two unpublished sets of guidelines for moderators, designed with favoritism towards some surely makes it difficult to take it seriously in the future. The realization that some of the professionals had inside knowledge of this confirms my suspicions of the past.. Thank heavens there are still the Transit and Passenger Forums, which have been historically immune from those factors..
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
That is certainly interesting to hear that there are phantom guidelines besides the published forum rules. I guess that explains the locking of those threads where a bunch of railroaders got upset that people thought they should wave back if waved to.
schlimm The realization that the General Forum was being run with two unpublished sets of guidelines for moderators, designed with favoritism towards some surely makes it difficult to take it seriously in the future. The realization that some of the professionals had inside knowledge of this confirms my suspicions of the past.. Thank heavens there are still the Transit and Passenger Forums, which have been historically immune from those factors..
Euclid That is certainly interesting to hear that there are phantom guidelines besides the published forum rules. I guess that explains the locking of those threads where a bunch of railroaders got upset that people thought they should wave back if waved to.
Murphy Siding,
So, Norm says moderators were told by the forum leader to give preferential treatment, and you say that is a conspiracy theory. Then you turn around and say you quit being a moderator because the forum leader told you to give preferential treatment.
Schlimm and Bucky appear to be stirring up the "drama pot" again......
And the beat goes on.
Murphy Siding And they would have away with it, if it hadn't been for those darn, meddling kids.
Murphy Siding Stop and think about this for a second. I don't know that there's any kind of *realization* here. What you have is one disgruntled(?) poster who made an allegation that you refer to. Sinister conspiracy, or sour grapes? I guess you'd just have to take in all the... evidence(?) and weigh the probabilities on their own.
it really isn't a new realization (more of a confirmation) and it has nothing to do with Bucky Euclid's post. Actually norm's. I will simply continue as a member knowing full well that the General Forum was and probably always will be rigged,with a certain group having insider information about its moderation. One thing I hope we could end on here are the little one-liner snipes by some members who think they are witty. And the other is to remain vigilant of trollers of the type many of us, railroaders and non, united against recently.
Yes, I was just referring to what Norm explained. No need for any theory.
By the way, to add to this, the person who was given the “preferred” treatment was not a railroader.
One of the mods, (not Murphy) emailed me and asked me to cease and desist because the person who was trolling was bugging the powers that be to the point of anger and irrational action, said action was not specified but inferred the banning of a few railroaders who would not just let it be, myself included.
That particular mod quit the next day out of frustration.
Now I like a debate as much as the next guy, as long as it remains a debate.
A point or position is offered, rebuttals and counter points are raised, it is discussed and so forth, so on….but when the rebuttals or challenges include snide, rude and condescending or patronizing comments, be they from the railfan or the railroader, it ceases to be debate and becomes argument.
There are a few posters here who do the word game, and imply something, playing the semantic word shuffle, and when they get called out on it, they suddenly claim to have not “said that” which is true, they crouched their comment in such a manner it can be denied, but read in context it is obvious what they intended to say.
Michael Sol was a master of this…the “I was in the office when the President of the Milwaukie Road said” implying he was in the same office as the president at the same time.
I could make a similar statement, “I was in the Office when the President of the United States decided to …”…yup, I have an office, and I was in it when POTUS decided something, but it certainly was not the Oval Office, the “office I was in” is located at the back of my house, but reading the statement as written it implies I was there at his side when the decision was made.
When you called Mike out on this ploy, he would explode, with wild crude nasty insults, and when he was called out on that, he suddenly becomes the “victim” of an attack, and recruited allies to his cause by flattering them, and a few folks fell for it.
We have a few guys like that here now.
I am not sure but some of them just like watching arguments happen, or are they “Spoons” who enjoy stirring the pot for their personal amusement, because they don’t often participate in the railroad discussions, but jump in with both feet in any argument currently running and fan the flames as hard as they can.
The trolls that start threads to cause problems I can handle, they are to be expected on any forum, but the spoons just aggravate the heck out of me, and most of the other railroaders, and we will go toe to toe with them, mostly because we work with a spoon or two on our carrier, and recognize the personality…it is just as annoying here as there.
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schlimmMurphy Siding Stop and think about this for a second. I don't know that there's any kind of *realization* here. What you have is one disgruntled(?) poster who made an allegation that you refer to. Sinister conspiracy, or sour grapes? I guess you'd just have to take in all the... evidence(?) and weigh the probabilities on their own. it really isn't a new realization (more of a confirmation) and it has nothing to do with Bucky Euclid's post. Actually norm's. I will simply continue as a member knowing full well that the General Forum was and probably always will be rigged,with a certain group having insider information about its moderation. One thing I hope we could end on here are the little one-liner snipes by some members who think they are witty. And the other is to remain vigilant of trollers of the type many of us, railroaders and non, united against recently.
EuclidMurphy Siding, So, Norm says moderators were told by the forum leader to give preferential treatment, and you say that is a conspiracy theory. Then you turn around and say you quit being a moderator because the forum leader told you to give preferential treatment.
Murray Schlimm and Bucky appear to be stirring up the "drama pot" again......
Drama? That's hard for me to believe. There again, I thought North Korea's dictator, Kim Jung Un is a swell guy.
ACYI don't think anybody is saying anything like that. A railroader with experience deserves to be listened to, when his experience is relevant. An innovator deserves to have his ideas listened to. Neither one deserves to be dismissed out-of-hand. Those of us who have spent careers in some form of railroad service usually know whether an idea has been tried before, and can come pretty close in our predictions about the success or failure of the innovation. It's arrogance that is resented; not the new idea itself.
I love innovation. I also think that re-inventing the wheel is so much theory, and short on practicality. Remember Kneiling's "True Train"? In some respects, what he thrust upon readers of this magazine eventually came true. Some of it seemed crackpot at the time, yet, it makes sense today. Example DPU trains.
But, Kneiling had credentials. The same cannot be said for a lot of others who speculate without basis.
schlimm Murphy Siding Stop and think about this for a second. I don't know that there's any kind of *realization* here. What you have is one disgruntled(?) poster who made an allegation that you refer to. Sinister conspiracy, or sour grapes? I guess you'd just have to take in all the... evidence(?) and weigh the probabilities on their own. it really isn't a new realization (more of a confirmation) and it has nothing to do with Bucky Euclid's post. Actually norm's. I will simply continue as a member knowing full well that the General Forum was and probably always will be rigged,with a certain group having insider information about its moderation. One thing I hope we could end on here are the little one-liner snipes by some members who think they are witty. And the other is to remain vigilant of trollers of the type many of us, railroaders and non, united against recently.
No insider information for me, I simply emailed Jim Wrinn, about the issue back then and the response was rather disheartening to say the least.
When I pointed out it was very un-fair to censor one group and not the other, he replied he didn’t care, he and the head of the mods had been hammered, in one instance, almost hourly emails for an entire day, by the poster in question, and he had had enough.
He told me he point blank instructed the mods to make it cease, by whatever means they could, fair or not, and in reality, he didn’t really care if it was fair, he thought it was quite petty in fact.
He even commented to the same in the forum on that particular thread.
So, following the instructions received from their boss and their boss’s boss, the mods placed a group of railroaders and a few non railroaders on moderated status because it was the fastest easiest way to put a halt to it.
The only preferential treatment anyone received was the instigator was pretty much allowed to rant and insult at will till he ran out of steam.
Murphy didn’t offer me any preferred treatment back then, in fact, I was on the receiving end of a few emails from him and other mods asking that I take the high ground so to speak and stop arguing, which most of the time, I followed.
This is, after all, just a forum.
Take it as such, and attach the amount of importance you choose.
edblysard No insider information for me, I simply emailed Jim Wrinn, about the issue back then and the response was rather disheartening to say the least. When I pointed out it was very un-fair to censor one group and not the other, he replied he didn’t care, he and the head of the mods had been hammered, in one instance, almost hourly emails for an entire day, by the poster in question, and he had had enough. He told me he point blank instructed the mods to make it cease, by whatever means they could, fair or not, and in reality, he didn’t really care if it was fair, he thought it was quite petty in fact. He even commented to the same in the forum on that particular thread. So, following the instructions received from their boss and their boss’s boss, the mods placed a group of railroaders and a few non railroaders on moderated status because it was the fastest easiest way to put a halt to it. The only preferential treatment anyone received was the instigator was pretty much allowed to rant and insult at will till he ran out of steam.
Ed,
It sounds like nobody was able to do anything about this instigator you mention. Are you telling me that the moderators, the forum managers, and Jim wrinn were all powerless to stop this instigator, so the only solution to end it was put a bunch of innocent people on moderation status?
Euclidp> Ed, It sounds like nobody was able to do anything about this instigator you mention. Are you telling me that the moderators, the forum managers, and Jim wrinn were all powerless to stop this instigator, so the only solution to end it was put a bunch of innocent people on moderation status?
Murphy SidingEuclidp> Ed, It sounds like nobody was able to do anything about this instigator you mention. Are you telling me that the moderators, the forum managers, and Jim wrinn were all powerless to stop this instigator, so the only solution to end it was put a bunch of innocent people on moderation status? Powerless? No. Apathetic and fed up? Yes. Taking the easy way out? Probably.
Well if the moderators wanted to take the easy way out, why not just block the instigator? The moderators have all the buttons. Wouldn't that have been easier than punishing a bunch of people who were just the innocent victims of this instigator? That instigator sure must have had some magic powers.
I seem to recall an incident quite similar to the one Ed had described. But it differed in several important ways so it can't be the same one.
Perhaps you could volunteer your services? Maybe, there's just some of the finer points of the system that the moderators don't understand, and they just need someone to point out the finer details?
Euclid Murphy SidingEuclidp> Ed, It sounds like nobody was able to do anything about this instigator you mention. Are you telling me that the moderators, the forum managers, and Jim wrinn were all powerless to stop this instigator, so the only solution to end it was put a bunch of innocent people on moderation status? Powerless? No. Apathetic and fed up? Yes. Taking the easy way out? Probably. Well if the moderators wanted to take the easy way out, why not just block the instigator? The moderators have all the buttons. Wouldn't that have been easier than punishing a bunch of people who were just the innocent victims of this instigator? That instigator sure must have had some magic powers. I seem to recall an incident quite similar to the one Ed had described. But it differed in several important ways so it can't be the same one.
Seems to me Euclid has the right of this one. I've also been subject to the kind of 'moderation' of which Ed Blysard has complained -- usually when I tried to respond to ad hominem attacks by the likes of Michael Sol, Railroad Man and Illinois Central. (The latter two maybe one and the same?)
How could such obvious mischief makers get such clout with Kalmbach? Good question.
The rest of us just keep plugging away, trying to take the forum in good faith (while no doubt stumbling, ourselves, once in a while into the occasional cheap shot, sometimes provoked). I like, so far, the new format for moderation and the way it's been exercised -- which is, with restraint!
My first career choice in high school was to be a porn actor. Railroading was my second choice.
In any case I only here cause I like (ed) trains. I enjoy stories and all those years ago I knew the folks at Kalmbach . My life in the last 2 years has not been good so I like a discussion that raises my hopes and hopefully put some of the enthusiasm for the job that was lost last summer. I keep hoping...
I haven't been unemployed for 25 years but suddenly I don't know what to do with all the time I now have.
Randy
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