Member Concerns Addressed to the Administrators

[Mandy]

*Please read the following guidelines before posting to this thread*

1. This thread is for members who have concerns and complaints about forum issues, particularly regarding moderation standards and implementation of the community rules, to try to resolve them in conversation with the admins. It is for concerns about general issues only. Complaints about specific moderators and specific moderator decisions should be directed to the admins via PM; we will not discuss them here.

2. All concerns and complaints on these topics should be posted in this thread. Other threads about issues that belong here will be merged into this thread.

3. One or more admins will be responding to the issues that have been raised. Moderators may also be responding if they are familiar with the issue under discussion. We cannot guarantee immediate responses, but will try to respond in a timely fashion.

4. In order to keep things from becoming confused, other members should not post in the thread during a conversation unless they have something factual and substantive to add. Such posts should be addressed to the admins or moderators, not to other members.

5. Repetitive posts, circular arguments, and posts expressing support or disagreement with the member or admin will be deleted in the interest of keeping the thread on track.

6. The TRF Community Rules apply to this thread and will be strictly enforced. Please take particular note of the following:

• Threads should remain on topic. If you wish to conduct a private conversation with another poster, please do so via the private message system or the chat room. Posts which are irrelevant or disruptive will be deleted or moved by one of the moderators.

• Insulting comments about other posters and royals are not permitted. Criticism is acceptable; insults and flames are not. We expect our members to treat each other with respect.

7. Posts that do not comply with these guidelines or the community rules will be deleted.

[Menarue]

Let me make sure that I have understood what is written above, other members should not, let me use the vernacular, "butt in"? (e.g. no.5).
Did this rule apply when I objected to a member entering into a conversation about moderation a few weeks ago? Is this a new rule? At the time I was told that the member had every right to enter into the conversation even though it was more or less to say the member was defending mods/friends from slander ( a misuse of the word but that is not important).
I don´t want to start the discussion again, it went on for far too long and it is over and done with and has, no doubt, become boring, but when I saw this, what seemed to me a new rule, I became curious.
Please note this is a general question and not meant to break rule 1.

[Warren]

The thread commenced today, therefore these guidelines are effective from today.

[iowabelle]

I have a question concerning moderation of political statements. What exactly are political statements in the opinions of the moderators?

For example, if I make this statement: "In view of the world's economic situation I applaud Princess Letizia's decision not to buy a new ballgown." Is that too political? Or if I criticize the Spanish Queen's remarks about homosexuals, is that too political?

The reason I ask this question is that I was reminded not to be political in the Obama discussion, post #255. Should I have avoided Mrs. Obama, her clothes, gardening, poor people or the fact that the Secretary of Agriculture was wearing a suit?

I was pretty reserved in my criticism of former persons in office and find it odd to be warned about criticism of people in my chosen party (and in fact people that I am only one or two people removed from if we play a political "6 Degrees of Separation" game).

If I'm a little too political and I'm not sure of what "the rules" are, they must mystify other members. I'm not trying to be difficult... just want to know what I should avoid doing in the future.

(I will say I've been "moderated" before, and I think the suggestions were fair and deserved.)

[Elspeth]

I think this was a misunderstanding, iowabelle. The reminder was in response to an overtly political diatribe against President Obama, which was deleted; it was the post right above yours. Your post was edited in order to merge two consecutive posts (the moderator gave the reason at the bottom of your post). Lady Jennifer's reminder did say that the political posts had been removed. You were just sort of in the wrong place at the wrong time - her post didn't apply to your post, it just happened to be next to it.

Members' Corner is supposed to stay away from politics and religion altogether because the only time those topics are permitted is in the context of royalty, which wouldn't apply in Members' Corner.

[iowabelle]

Okay, Elspeth... and I will admit I was being snotty about a certain politician, so I probably was riding the edge too!

Sometimes it's so hard to write something without letting some of your ideology into it, and we're all so opinionated and easily offended these days...

Thank you, moderators, for trying to keep us civil!

[NotAPretender]

Hello, is there a mod about the premises?

[Elspeth]

Yep, the mods are the ones in purple in the list of members who are online. There are quite a few around at the moment. What's up?

[scooter]

OK, now I'm confused...earlier today I pointed out that one poster had been attacking a brand new person...telling them to get a life, in response to their first , perfectly polite post, which questioned the fact that Charles does not alway practice what he preaches environmentally. I asked was this not exactly what had been discussed in the bullying thread recently. I also pointed out that a very prolific poster had, the line before, stated that 'my comments were best ignored'. Strangely, my post has been deleted. But the two I was responding to were not. I have tried very hard to stay within the forum rules. I am confused as to why some people are not required to do so. It seems recently that there have been more than a few new people who have been run off on their first few posts, for disagreeing with 'the hovercrafts'. Dont we want fresh posters with new ideas?

[Warren]

Originally Posted by scooter

OK, now I'm confused...earlier today I pointed out that one poster had been attacking a brand new person...telling them to get a life, in response to their first , perfectly polite post, which questioned the fact that Charles does not alway practice what he preaches environmentally. I asked was this not exactly what had been discussed in the bullying thread recently. I also pointed out that a very prolific poster had, the line before, stated that 'my comments were best ignored'. Strangely, my post has been deleted. But the two I was responding to were not. I have tried very hard to stay within the forum rules. I am confused as to why some people are not required to do so. It seems recently that there have been more than a few new people who have been run off on their first few posts, for disagreeing with 'the hovercrafts'. Dont we want fresh posters with new ideas?

Scooter, there are two issues involved here and both are perfectly clear:

• There is no constructive purpose served in resurrecting an old post in an effort to restart an argument well after everyone else has moved on;
• As you well know, it is a Forum rule that members who disagree with a moderator's decision should not argue about it in the thread but instead contact the moderator by PM.

My moderator post stated

There is little to be gained by arguing about a post made over a month ago. Let's move on please.

You posted a disagreement to that post in contravention of the rules.
As is standard practice in such circumstances your post was deleted by a British Forums moderator who sent you a PM explaining the action.

[Elspeth]

The admins are discussing this and someone will be along with a response shortly. Stay tuned...

[Skydragon]

If there is a perceived problem with an ordinary member acting as a mod, is it acceptable to push the report button or would the Admins/Mods prefer posters to contact them by PM?

[Elspeth]

If you think it's urgent and there are no admins or forum mods online, then by all means use the Report button. If it's just annoying but not urgent, or if there are people around you can PM, then PMs are better. Reported posts generate e-mails that go out to all the admins, and also generate automatic threads in the mod forum, so it can be a bit of a performance to deal with them. Not that it's a problem, but it's better to reserve the Report button for use as a last resort.

However, with PMs, it doesn't hurt to cc them to the whole admin team or the whole forum mod team or whatever, just to make sure you aren't PMing someone who's in the middle of something else and who might not get to your PM for a while.

[Incas]

If several people all have questions about a post, but for different reasons, are we allowed to individually post questions, even if the posts are back to back? Or do we have to wait for other supporters to post first? One moderator intimated that if more than one "negative" post were posted back to back, they would be considered "pile-on" and "bullying", but I can't find the specific forum rule that spells out the case.

[Warren]

Originally Posted by Incas

If several people all have questions about a post, but for different reasons, are we allowed to individually post questions, even if the posts are back to back? Or do we have to wait for other supporters to post first? One moderator intimated that if more than one "negative" post were posted back to back, they would be considered "pile-on" and "bullying", but I can't find the specific forum rule that spells out the case.

There is no problem with members asking questions about a post. However, if by "questions" you are instead referring to the relentlessly negative posting we are trying to discourage, please refer to the announcement in the Community Forums titled Concerns about the increase in repetitive and ugly criticism.
For example, if a couple of members have posted negative or unconstructive criticisms, it is not mandatory to provide support for them by adding your own in the same vein.

[Skydragon]

Sometimes, due to slow internet speeds and real life, back to back posts are difficult to avoid.

[Warren]

The issue is not post positioning but post content.

[Jo of Palatine]

Originally Posted by Warren

The issue is not post positioning but post content.

Who is to judge what is what? How can in this thread be "content" not be some sort of positioning?

[Marengo]

The moderators are to look at that, that is what they/we are here for. Of course people might not agree with what the moderators decide, but we can't please everybody of course.

[Skydragon]

Each and every poster might have a similar thing to say about a particular article or post and depending on their speed, some posts will inevitably be one after the other, with similar content. There may not be any intention of supporting a previous poster.

I think many do not realise the problems others might have with the speed of typing/loading a reply, (which is extremely slow tonight).