censorship

[pixmedic]

Until very recently I was a mod on a different photography forum (for about 5 years) and we did things a bit differently - and it seemed to work.

The rules of behavior were very simple - each member must respect each others' statements, abilities and subjects, no matter what.
Disagreements were fine but we really discouraged the kind of passive-aggressive, back-biting BS we see so often here.
Warnings were given in line, in the thread.
If threads got out of hand too quickly for the mods to get there, the thread was removed to the mod forum and 'things were sorted' and the mods discussed the issue.
Threads very rarely got locked but were generally returned as is with an explanation of what was wrong.
People rarely got banned for good.

As I see it here, the hidden-ness of the mod's responses leads many people to conclude that there are usually only two levels of response, none and locking.
The few times I have seen the mods say something officially in line seem to have been very effective.
I suggest more of that to create a model for good behavior.

you miss quite a lot of threads then where a mod issues a warning and it is promptly ignored.
are you still active on that other forum? it seems that if they have a system that works better, that would be the forum to be on, rather than one with a system you don't agree with.

I agree that a heavier hand is needed for offenders, but changes are made when there is agreement among the entire mod team. (or orders come down from the admins)
we get plenty of PMs telling us how we already over moderate. plenty of PM's saying we need to outright ban a number of people and put our foot down on future offenders. its a never ending battle to try and please people.
as it stands now, the mod team operates per forum rules and how the admins want things done.
There are constant "talks" about this exact issue among the mod team, and if there was some magical moderation formula that would please everyone, we would do it.

"this is how the other forum im a mod on does it, and it works better" is not the most compelling argument, because every forum is different. (unless they are owned by the same people)
the staff is different, the members are different, and the admins may have different views on how things should be run.
we are always open to suggestions, and have even recently implemented one from a member. (the aspiring pro section)
but changes are slow. discussions take time, and admins have to be convinced (and give approval)before any changes to policy are made.

you are absolutely right about "hidden" mod interactions, and that is something that has been discussed at length recently, and it is something we are trying to implement changes on. I think the end result will be much more publicly visible warnings and actions taken by mods on problem threads. how that will relate to punishments handed out, I do not know yet, but we hope to at least have a good starting point.

 

[runnah]

I will relate back to a previous statement i made.
you are pretty free here to discuss whatever you want.
the ONLY major constraint is that you must conduct yourself in a civil manner.

how is asking people not to engage in flaming and personal attacks really hindering your free speech?
because you cant call someone a ********** ***** ***** **** openly on the forum?
we dont tell you what you can and cannot discuss here...we only tell you that you have to NOT be a total A$$ about it.

The point here is that you cannot post certain topic and you cannot say certain things. It's certainly not North Korea, but its isn't what should be.

Who is being protected by blocking words like ****? What is the goal behind not letting certain topics through?

There is nothing wrong with disagreeing with someone or arguing or even calling them an *******. It's normal behavior, it shouldn't be stifled, apologized for or swept under the rug.

 

[SCraig]

The point here is that you cannot post certain topic and you cannot say certain things. It's certainly not North Korea, but its isn't what should be.

Who is being protected by blocking words like ****? What is the goal behind not letting certain topics through?

There is nothing wrong with disagreeing with someone or arguing or even calling them an *******. It's normal behavior, it shouldn't be stifled, apologized for or swept under the rug.

It's a moot point. You're right in that this isn't North Korea however it IS a PRIVATELY owned forum. The members don't set the rules, the OWNERS set the rules and the members abide by them. If I came to your house and started flicking cigarette ashes everywhere with the excuse that I can do it in my house if I wanted to would that go over very well? Somehow I don't think so. I make the rules in my home, you make the rules in your home. When I visit your home I abide by your rules, when you visit my home you abide by my rules. No different here.

 

[pixmedic]

I will relate back to a previous statement i made.
you are pretty free here to discuss whatever you want.
the ONLY major constraint is that you must conduct yourself in a civil manner.

how is asking people not to engage in flaming and personal attacks really hindering your free speech?
because you cant call someone a ********** ***** ***** **** openly on the forum?
we dont tell you what you can and cannot discuss here...we only tell you that you have to NOT be a total A$$ about it.

The point here is that you cannot post certain topic and you cannot say certain things. It's certainly not North Korea, but its isn't what should be.

Who is being protected by blocking words like ****? What is the goal behind not letting certain topics through?

There is nothing wrong with disagreeing with someone or arguing or even calling them an *******. It's normal behavior, it shouldn't be stifled, apologized for or swept under the rug.

well, the truth of the matter is that the owners want this to be a family friendly forum. while we do not appear to have many (if any) underage members, it is still a possibility, and is not discouraged.
the larger truth is that it is simply what the owners want. it is their house, their rules.
as for certain topics, even that rule has been pretty lax.
Whats the point of paying to set up your own forum if you cannot delegate the rules within it?
its like me telling you that i can do whatever I want inside your home, even though its YOUR house.
would you allow me to start spewing all manner of obscenities in your home in front of your children in the name of free speech and non censorship?

The goal behind certain topics not being allowed....that's a tough question to answer. honestly? the best answer I can give you is that those are the topics the admins have found to cause the most problems on a consistent basis. perhaps Terri can give you a better explanation as she has been around here a lot longer, and since before the sale of the forum.
Part of it is that this is a photography forum. not a gun forum, not a political forum, not a car forum....and yet, i have seen several threads with those very topics NOT locked or moved because they stayed civil, even though per the rules they should have been deleted. I myself have posted pictures of my wife's quilting simply to show her work, even though this is not a quilting or sewing forum.

even THIS VERY THREAD technically goes against forum rules....
but...here it is. still going. why? I would say because it has thus far been civil.
the Mods arent some jack booted thugs trying to suppress your ideas and opinions, we are just trying to enforce the rules of the forum as best we can. sometimes we are a little too hard, sometimes we are a little too easy. we TRY to stay somewhere in the middle, but no matter which way we go, we get PM's about how we arent doing things right.
we're over moderating. we're under moderating. we need to lock threads sooner, ban more people, or we need to do nothing at all and let the threads go. It can be a frustrating situation, with no solution that will make everyone happy.

 

[runnah]

Well my responses veered away from this forum and mods to the larger issue of censorship.

But in a way it's part if the problem. If more places were allowed to talk about political issues in an open fashion rather than the way a sponsor that is paying the most money wants, things might change.

 

[Overread16 4]

We've only banned topics on politics, guns, religion and film VS digital* And only because those subjects have been shown to cause repeat problems. Not just once off, but some (eg politics) can be nearly every single thread going into fights. As a result the mods imposed a ban on those subjects; guns is the most recent after a series of repeat arguments on very tame gun threads (pretty much it was post a picture of a gun - get a multi-page argument on gun rights and such).

We don't want to ban topics, but we also want a life as mods. We can't babysit the forum so where a topic is shown to cause repeat problems and isn't one of the primary focuses of the forums subject we impose a restriction upon them. We DO allow discussion on these topics along with other matters such as nude photos in the subscribers section. The view being that as its a paid for privilege users in there are more likely to be respectful and less likely to mouth off and lose what they've paid to access (subscription is a donation to the site not a paid for service and as such we can and have revoked it in the past - it offers no additional protection for a user).



We could operate much more strictly, we actually have a large enough mod team that is active at present that would could put such a system into place. However we would still likely have to expand the mod team - and impose a lot more work for ourselves and have a huge overhaul of things. It's a lot of work and we'd likely go through a long period of people jabbing at the site to get around the host of stricter rules. It's not part of the atmosphere we really want to have though- we don't want a site that is heavily moderated and more of a workload to operate for the mods.

We are respecting that there are some areas where we do need to tighten down and we have recently taken action in bringing out the new aspiring/beginner professional section which has increased moderator attention over other sections to address a frequent "newbie bashing" problem on that specific user group.


Another thing to keep in mind is that most people complain about over or under moderation only when its actually affected themselves. Those who get moderated say we are too harsh and those who feel slightly and haven't seen the hand of god strike down their opponent/aggressor feel we are undermoderating. Many also forget that words are said in private and that we don't always punish people in the open for every situation - often a thread is locked and warnings or notices are given out in to the affected users.

This is in part to help avoid gang-piling on a user - a punished user is punished and that should be the end of the matter and not stand as an excuse for others to goad them into further bad behaviour or to directly start trying to back-seat moderate and continue punishing that user


edit *
Film VS Digital is actually a very relaxed rule. We use it when its necessary but the majority of film and digital discussion threads actually run pretty quiet these days. It's a far cry from the earlier days of digital where such debates could split a forum and have people raging at each other. This does still happen on some sites and is a fairly common photography specific restriction on debate with forums.

 

[SCraig]

Well my responses veered away from this forum and mods to the larger issue of censorship.

But in a way it's part if the problem. If more places were allowed to talk about political issues in an open fashion rather than the way a sponsor that is paying the most money wants, things might change.

I can't argue with that! I'm as much against nanny states as anyone but I still respect the rights of private ownership.

One forum I used to frequent had an "Anything Goes" section that was virtually unmoderated. It frequently got WAY out of hand, but people who posted there did so with the understanding that it was a lawless area where they could vent or discuss anything at all. Personal threats were not allowed, and were dealt with harshly, but name-calling, arguing, griping, and general bitching were allowed. It was also the ONLY place on the forum where it was allowed and it tended to keep arguments confined to that area.

 

[pixmedic]

Well my responses veered away from this forum and mods to the larger issue of censorship.

But in a way it's part if the problem. If more places were allowed to talk about political issues in an open fashion rather than the way a sponsor that is paying the most money wants, things might change.

I can't argue with that! I'm as much against nanny states as anyone but I still respect the rights of private ownership.

One forum I used to frequent had an "Anything Goes" section that was virtually unmoderated. It frequently got WAY out of hand, but people who posted there did so with the understanding that it was a lawless area where they could vent or discuss anything at all. Personal threats were not allowed, and were dealt with harshly, but name-calling, arguing, griping, and general bitching were allowed. It was also the ONLY place on the forum where it was allowed and it tended to keep arguments confined to that area.

we have a similar section for subscribing members.
not as appealing since you have to have paid to get in, so there are less people that can post there, but it IS far less moderated.

 

[Overread16 4]

The only problem with sections like that is whilst they can take pressure off the rest of the forum they can also quickly become a very hostile sub-community within the site. My general feeling is that that would go against the presentation and behaviour of the site that the admin/owners want - I'd also say that its not something I'd like to see happen. TPF has always been about photography and whilst we do have some great off-topic discussions I think that the strength of the site is in keeping to that focus instead of trying to really branch out to encompass and support multiple other possible discussion and topic contents.

 

[runnah]

My general feeling is that that would go against the presentation and behaviour of the site that the admin/owners want

You should work for Viacom.

 

[rexbobcat]

This is a big problem in America. People think that it is in their Bill of Rights that they should not be offended by anyone. This is and will ruin the country. One person dislikes something and or is offended by it and it has to stop. It's not right. Be offended and don't look at whatever it is anymore instead of changing it for everyone else who may like it.

BTW this isn't about the forum. I'm talking in general about America as a whole.

I'm not sure this is exclusive to America.

Well, except for the Bill of Rights.

I think it's more of an Internet thing vs. something that can be pinned down to one country. I think it's just more apparent to Americans because, well, we're generally around Americans dealing with American issues.

 

[minicoop1985]

I can't argue with that! I'm as much against nanny states as anyone but I still respect the rights of private ownership.

One forum I used to frequent had an "Anything Goes" section that was virtually unmoderated. It frequently got WAY out of hand, but people who posted there did so with the understanding that it was a lawless area where they could vent or discuss anything at all. Personal threats were not allowed, and were dealt with harshly, but name-calling, arguing, griping, and general bitching were allowed. It was also the ONLY place on the forum where it was allowed and it tended to keep arguments confined to that area.

I moderate a car forum that has one of these. It's not accessible to the general public unless you ask, but when someone's thread got moved there because an argument started, we'd let them in automatically and let them hash it out if they needed.

Moderating isn't easy. You're going to make people mad. When people ARE mad, they're going to call you out because you're a perceived "authority figure." I've been on forums where certain moderators were absolutely hated and frequently topics of discussion on other forums simply because they tried to enforce rules, and were therefore seen as "authoritarian" and "dictators" and whatever incredibly original titles these people could muster. Hell, being a moderator hasn't made me any friends, but it has made me some enemies. The thing to remember for everyone is that moderators or administrators are people just like everyone else. Mods will make good calls, and mods will make bad calls. I've made a few in my time. I'll never be one to assert "authority" over someone and tell them "I'M THE MODERATOR" because it doesn't work, and I happily have seen none of that here. The fact that this thread is still here is a testament to that, in my opinion. OK, I'm done, you guys can have your soapbox back.