Good morning, Trains Forum.
We've gotten a few waves of complaints about forum posters. Generally speaking, these have been complaints about one person questioning another's intelligence or calling a forum poster by a name he wasn't born with -- why, we've even seen cases where political labels are used to shout down someone with a different opinion.We've kept a hands-off approach for months because this forum is for you, the men and women who are interested in railroads and railroading, and for your enjoyment. Most will agree that thread locks and post deletions are rare and measured in the Trains forums.
Because of forum settings and our other duties with the magazine and website, the alternative approach is for us to begin deleting posts and locking forums as soon as we receive a complaint and sort out the details later on.What do we prefer? We would rather that the forums be a place for congenial discussion and occasional, good-natured ribbing about railroads.
That said, this is your forum, let us know your thoughts below.All the best,
Ang and Steve
Steve SweeneyDigital Editor, Hobby
Steve and all:
I agree. This is a fun and informative place to share information between railfans. Let's keep this civil and to the point.
Ed Burns
Happily retired NP-BN-BNSF from Minneapolis.
In my opinion, the question needs to be looked at in a slightly different light. If moderation is to be exercised, a large part of it has to be used to enforce the defined terms of service. How thoroughly that is done is an indication of how serious Kalmbach is about those defined terms. Perhaps it might be time to re-visit the formal TOS, determine what is "in" and "out" of the present moderators' scope, and redefine the terms so they reflect that -- for example, by allowing political discussion up to a point in, say, Amtrak threads, but not allowing political diatribes or ranting.
I'm all for freedom of expression, and for allowing thread drift UNLESS the thread's OP expresses irritation over the drift. But I also assume that members of the groups and lists I moderate will have the self-control to respect other people (even if they don't respect their opinions at all!) and refrain from taking up things that a particular TOS rules out. We had a rather bad experience here a year or so ago with a moderator who kept enforcing his preferences with a sort of puppy-dog enthusiasm; grown-ups often don't care much for this style of thing. On the other hand, when there is a demonstrable violation of TOS provisions that are intended to keep the forums civil ... or as 'family-oriented' as the present TOS defines ... it's appropriate imho to contact the 'culprits', warn THEM to modify their posts (giving detail, if need be), and hand out the moderation status or perhaps even bans if they fail to respond.
It's a bit strange that mods can delete posts, but not edit them (as we used to be able to do). Current policy is that individual posters retain intellectual-property rights to the substance of their posts (that's the reason that Yahoo Groups, for example, doesn't allow offsite backups of group e-mail archives without getting every poster's permission for every post in writing first). Here is, I believe, an example of the law of unintended consequences -- the whole post has to disappear, or the whole set of comments from a particular person, rather than just the egregious portion(s) which might be separate from meaningful points or valuable insights made by that person when in their right mind.
(I would ordinarily respect the ban on discussing moderation style on this forum, but this particular topic involves it...)
Overmod:
Here are the Terms of Use for Forums from the Kalmbach page. What changes do you recommend?
http://www.kalmbach.com/termsofuse
Forum TermsViolating any of the Terms below may result in your forum account being locked. In the event that your forum account is locked, we may, but are not obligated to, remove forum posts you have added to our site.
Steve- They used to have those forum policies pinned at the top of each forum, which was a good reminder. For the last year or two, the only place they could be found was on the model railroading forum.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Steve,
I think Kalmbach is "borrowing trouble" with its no politics rule. It is impossible to talk about railroads beyond what paint scheme you like without getting into politics. If it were up to me I would remove that rule.
I have been here 7-8 years and know who I can count on for something stupid, and odds are they think about the same thing about me.
I have made only one complaint in that time. It was recent and was about a forum member who took on the role of thought police.
I fear that I prompted some of this in my effort to offer a counter point to some outrageous claims about land grants in a thread having to do with passenger trains. One poster, who I have not seen before, went ballistic and ended his rant by accusing me of being a REPUBLICAN. Horrors! You pulled his post. I would prefer that you left it. Ignorance is its own reward and you saved him from his.
If I were Kalmbach I would moderate not at all, my personal favorite, or give very short shrift to the constant complainers. They believe in free speech until someone uses it to challenge their world view. You are giving them far too much power by responding to their complaints.
Mac McCulloch
Murph:Ang and I have asked internally. Within the bounds set by Kalmbach's Terms of Use, each magazine is responsible for setting its own rules and styles of moderating. In other words, the editors and off-site moderators set their own tone.
That said, rules from other titles do not automatically apply to Trains.~Steve
First, I'd like to thank you for providing this forum at what seems to be great cost and time. Despite the personality conflicts, this forum is the most civil and informative forum I have seen.
The big issue I see is battles between a couple of groups of posters, who have been around for a long time and have steadily grown to dislike each other. The inevitable lack of exact communication exacerbates this, especially over certain topics related to how railroaders work.
Changes I would make-
-Post the forum terms of service at the top of the General Discussion forum
-Require direct quotes, and not paraphrasing. This allows contributors to twist the words of others, with predictable results.
-Amend politics to "Unnecessary/non-rail related politics". Yes, this draws a rather arbitrary line, but rail-related political discussions are almost unavoidable with government operated passenger service.
-Enforce the ban on discussions of graffiti, and illegal freight train riding, as these threads do cause trouble. We had our chance to attempt civil discussion of the subjects, and we have failed again to avoid name calling.
-Weekend moderation. Most of the wars tend to occur on the weekends.
Once again, thank you for your hard work, money, time, and patience; this forum is an excellent resource.
NorthWestChanges I would make- -Require direct quotes, and not paraphrasing. This allows contributors to twist the words of others, with predictable results.
I disagree. People have been quoting posters and then merrily misinterpreting and misstating what they said since the beginning of time. Sometimes it is intended to twist what was said, but many times is simply due to not understanding what was quoted.
Recently, I said that I paraphrased what I quoted, and some took great exception to doing that as though it were an unprecedented sin by somehow interfering with the purity of the quoted poster’s thoughts. Actually, the paraphrase is only in the spirit of commenting on a quoted passage from another person. If I had not referred to it as a paraphrase, nobody would have seen an issue to grab hold of.
Actually by saying that I was paraphrasing, it amounted to admitting that I was only interpreting the original poster, and asking for him to correct my interpretation if I was wrong. How much fairer can you be if you disagree with what someone says? Is it unfair to paraphrase while perfectly fair to quote someone, and snarkily tell them they don’t know what they are talking about?
Ironically, the whoopla over my use of paraphrase was very essence of what was thought to be objectionable about my paraphrasing. What it really amounted to was the nonsensical contention that nobody has the right to say what they think that another poster means.
If we were to go that standard, then we would need to simply end any reference to what a previous poster says. Eliminate the quote function, and ban the addressing of a poster about any point of their previous comments. Each person would just state their point completely independent of framing it as a response to any other points made by others. Everybody could add their “piece” of the thread to the collective commentary, but nothing would be said back and forth between posters. That way, there would be no flame wars, and no disrespect, real or imagined.
My two cents, oops, sorry, all that is currently in my pocket are Sheckles:
Politics should be allowed as they effect railroading. This can even extend to economic philosophy, such our discussion sometime back about Prof. Noam Chomsky's views. Because railroad and transit systems are deeply affected by politics and economic systems, and this is the proper forum to discuss these effects. But political subjects such a reproductive rights and controls, immigration control in general (as opposed to a specific case of a particular railroad train), personal behavior of specific politicians, should be avoided completely. I also believe that matters about the competition, both passenger and freight, air, highway, and water should be permitted.
Two cents, let me see with conversion, well here is my five Agorot coin. Should really be seven but there isn't one. Anyway, the smallest I have on me is ten Agorot, and you can have that.
RIDEWITHMEHENRY is the name for our almost monthly day of riding trains and transit in either the NYCity or Philadelphia areas including all commuter lines, Amtrak, subways, light rail and trolleys, bus and ferries when warranted. No fees, just let us know you want to join the ride and pay your fares. Ask to be on our email list or find us on FB as RIDEWITHMEHENRY (all caps) to get descriptions of each outing.
I believe the forum rules are reasonable.
Railroads and transit systems are influenced by politics and, therefore, some discussion of the politics that impacts them is appropriate. The discussion should be restricted to an explanation of a political party's stance with respect to rail and transit issues.
Frequently the discussions tend to go far afield from the presenting topic. At times it is difficult to remember what the presenting topic was. That's OK. However, if a participant believes that the discussion has gone too far off topic, he or she should be able to say so without being denigrated for it.
Euclid, thanks for quoting! You are not the only one who paraphrases.
The problem is when the second person mistakenly paraphrases the first person's post and interprets it in a way that was not intended, and first poster sees it as a deliberate misrepresentation to bolster the second poster's point. As you say, misrepresentation can be done with quotes, but with a direct copy, there is less chance of conflict because others can judge the second poster's response based on the first poster's post, rather than the second poster's interpretation of the first poster's post.
I can see why banning paraphrasing is probably not the best solution, but I view avoiding it as a forum best practice. I've also found that asking someone to rephrase their ideas works better than trying to write what it could mean, and ask the other person if that is what was meant. People are less likely to see it as a twisting of their words.
Psst - where are the forum policies?
She who has no signature! cinscocom-tmw
Mookie Psst - where are the forum policies?
I wanted to re-read them and can't find them...
OK - I guess I am confused. I know Steve just posted them, but didn't we have something in writing about hobos and graffiti threads being a no-no?
Mookie I wanted to re-read them and can't find them... OK - I guess I am confused. I know Steve just posted them, but didn't we have something in writing about hobos and graffiti threads being a no-no?
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Russell
schlimm Mookie I wanted to re-read them and can't find them... OK - I guess I am confused. I know Steve just posted them, but didn't we have something in writing about hobos and graffiti threads being a no-no? As Murphy said, on the MR Forums: No discussions about graffiti. We understand that it’s a part of modern railroading and in turn something that the modelers on this forum may want to replicate. However, we’ve found that every time the topic comes up, an argument ensues because of the strong viewpoints against it. Plus, it’s vandalism and not something we want to glorify.- No discussions about hobos or the hobo lifestyle. It’s trespassing and sets a poor example for the youth that visit this forum. Plus, like graffiti discussions, it usually leads to arguments.
Some history, if I may (I'll be concise, I promise):
Prior to 2007, there were no moderators. One of the MR staffers, Eric Bergstrom, had to monitor all fora except for the Classic Toy Trains forum, which had its own resident forum moderator.
Both the trains.com and MR fora were busy, and they seemed to court the most infractions of the rules extant at the time (which did include, by then, the hobo/graffiti/politics proscriptions).
Eric, I think gratefully, and I think having gotten approval from his superiors, agreed to trial moderators in the late summer of 2007. He first selected Ken McKay and Tom Stage (NZRMac and tstage respectively). I eventually asked if I could be a moderator and was accepted. Our chief beef (sorry) was with a persistent troll on the MR forums who had the habit of registering under the radar, and then dragging up dead threads and making a snide comment. That was our alert, and the war would be engaged. He'd post filth for an hour, posting as often as 100 times in that hour. Two of us would work late into the night to delete all his posts.
Eventually, Eric sought, and was granted, permission to give us the power to lock accounts, but also to see new ones and to approve them after five initial posts. We said good-bye at that point to the trolls....all of them. We made some enemies, but the trolls' allies learned to walk softly...some did, anyway.
Regrettably, after about 18 months, our hosts reconsidered and took away most of our preventive powers. Soon after, Tom and I pulled the plug. By then, the culture of the various fora had improved, and we felt that we had won the war.
Lately, I see some of the less sociable behaviours beginning to crop up again. Proscribed topics don't seem to be locked, and the ad hominems and other abusive diatribes are becoming more commonplace once again.
I don't disagree in principle with trying out a more laissez-faire approach. If it works, and is sustained, great. However, Tom and I predicted that this would be cyclical in nature, and that, just as a garden becomes overrun with weeds if they are not kept in check, so a forum that goes un-monitored will soon be overrun with posts from people who don't care much for the sensibilities of their their hosts or those who like a more 'conservative' or respectful tone.
Steve, you have initiated this thread for a reason. You didn't do it in a vacuum, or on a whim. You have felt the need to react to a change of some sort, some impetus that you haven't felt the need to deal with up until now. You have revealed that complaints have begun to appear in your inbox, or that you have been tasked with the revelation from someone else that there seems to be a problem developing.
You need moderators. Every forum I frequent has them. They operate effectively if they are skilled communicators, mature, even-tempered, and motivated. If they have those attributes, they will operate unobtrusively most of the time. I used PM's every day to coach 'difficult' people through protracted differences of opinion with other forumites. I had some success, while others just couldn't put their emotions and strong opinions behind them when they interacted. A few we had to 'let go'...permanently.
Finally, if you give your moderators the tools they need to do their jobs, you, and your guests, will be richly rewarded. Tom and I still talk to each other occasionally and commiserate about those long battles with that one evil man on Friday and Saturday nights until we got account locking privileges (they can always be unlocked with successful appeals, but so far those are batting zero).
I have gone on at length, but I will say that there's one thing I know, and that's people. The old aphorism, "Give a man an inch..." was not crafted by a dullard who didn't know what he was talking about. If you want to continue to be busy and focused on other aspects of your work, Steve, seek, select, and provision good volunteers who will make your forum responsibilities much easier on you.
-Crandell
Mookie schlimm Mookie I wanted to re-read them and can't find them... OK - I guess I am confused. I know Steve just posted them, but didn't we have something in writing about hobos and graffiti threads being a no-no? As Murphy said, on the MR Forums: No discussions about graffiti. We understand that it’s a part of modern railroading and in turn something that the modelers on this forum may want to replicate. However, we’ve found that every time the topic comes up, an argument ensues because of the strong viewpoints against it. Plus, it’s vandalism and not something we want to glorify.- No discussions about hobos or the hobo lifestyle. It’s trespassing and sets a poor example for the youth that visit this forum. Plus, like graffiti discussions, it usually leads to arguments. Then why is the "Poster Boy" thread allowed? I need clarification
Schlimm - you have been peeking into my thoughts! But since I don't want to upset anyone in charge, I am putting a zipper on it and just seeing how much rope he needs/gets.
Very interesting thread here.
I don't recognize a fair number of the previous posters here...unless they represent the "silent majority" of non posting "general discussion" readers.
Why are people, especially Americans, afraid of freedom? People have the right to make fools out of themselves in public. Or to be thought wise, or witty, or boring.
Why censor at all? Why not let freedom ring and contributors say anything, serious or foolish, they want to say? What's the worst that could come from that? Hurt feelings? How would that detract from Kalmbach's bottom line?
I think the room, if uncensored, would eventually achieve a culture where the flamers would be discounted and the sages recognized.
As Harry Truman, a great American, said of politics (a much rougher thing than posting on a forum or reading comments), "If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen."
I think a number of contributors here simply need to develop a thicker hide.
schlimm I haven't the foggiest. I also wonder why our most recent "semi-troller" (not Ohio River Trail, though there are some similarities) who seems obsessed with eliminationist strategies of dealing with folks who offend his sensibilities: taggers, trespassers, cars at crossings, idiots, etc. is tolerated?
Yawn
Welcome, Ken. Your usual profound observations are always refreshing!
Some days, I am not so profound in my comments. And on the rare day, I actually make sense.
I feel that you should let everyone try to resolve their problems. I believe that if someone feels a post violates the forum policies, another member should asked that there post be clean up, if that doesn't happen then the post should be reported to moderators who will fix the problem.
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