Forum moderation

[stuartw2112]

I will no longer be contributing to this forum due to the moronic moderation. I don't suppose anyone will care in my case, but assuming you care about your party's ongoing reputation for competence in debate, I'd get someone with some intelligence and discrimination to do the moderating.

All the best

Stuart

[SocialistPunk]

Surely you aren't gonna let a slap on the wrist put you off further discussions here? That's a little OTT considering what can happen in the weird and wonderful world of political debate.You will be missed Stuart, as disagreement makes for interesting debate. But at the end of the day it's your decision.  

[imposs1904]

"moronic moderation" is a silly and unhelpful term, but I would say that the recent banning of Stuart from the forum was absolutely ridiculous and over the top. If a chair had acted like that in a meeting, there would have been a motion to remove them from the chair.Discretion should have been applied during that particular thread, and to suggest that the moderator had to abide by the rules just wont wash.

[Anonymous]

 I agree "moronic moderation" is not a helpful term but I drew attention to forum moderation sometime ago and actually resigned from the party over it.In some organisations chairmen are elected annually but in the socialist party the chairman can be removed immediately by vote.Or the chairperson can be directed by a democratic vote. We are probably unique in our ability to democratically remove the chair. We are in no way unique in our moderation. In fact we are more severe than most. I said then and I  am saying it now – The party needs to discuss this issue. We have no mechanism for the democratic control of moderation.I think we should apologise to stuart..

[jondwhite]

I hope you will contribute in other ways or other channels. Moderation needs more oversight.

[Anonymous]

Here is a message from a TZM moderator: "I'd advise people to use the 'report' and 'block' buttons more. If you disagree with someone or don't like their posts, block. If someone's being offensive or offtopic, report. Please don't rely on us 5 mods to babysit the group of 6,000. TZM isn't about leaders solving all the problems, it's about self-organising "Not saying I agree but interesting 

[alanjjohnstone]

I have to add my own regret to Stuart's departure from the forum, and can only hope it is another of his decisions where he changes his mind upon and that he continues to share his wisdom and wit with us all (and that is said in  by someone who found crossing swords with Stuart both helpful and instructive in developing his own thoughts and ideas even if they were ultimately not in accord with Stuart's views.)

[DJP]

Vin wrote:

I'd advise people to use the 'report' and 'block' buttons more.

Currently it is not possible for individual users to block posts from other users that they do not want to read. But this could be put into the new site, I think it's a good idea.

[alanjjohnstone]

I'm not so sure the block facility is a wise one.How easy it will be if instead of debating and discussing and actually responding to criticism, one simply turns a deaf ear to conflicting opinion and perhaps pay no heed to actual contrary evidence by blocking. Are we not encouraging a tendency of listening only to the converted rather than demanding that we all engage with one another, regardless of whether we agree or not.You pick and choose who you wish to listen to, and as we frequently make comparisons with public meetings, that can happen at those…the whole audience is involved in listening to a contribution or re-buttal. If the reason for blocking happens to be one of personal animousity or an on-going feud then i think the moderator has presently sufficient powers to deter this.  

[moderator1]

The block function is applicable to facebook but not here where all arguments and disagreements are transparent and in your face as part and parcel of the democratic process.   Also from my experience of blocking on facebook the flow of participatory democracy is disconnected with the blocked user unable to reply to any criticism posted by the person who has blocked them.  Another strong argument against blocking is that where the function is available it can in extreme circumstances be used as a form of bullying with some users doing a gangbang on a particular user they dislike. 

[Anonymous]

Not in favour of block function, for reasons setout by Alan and mod1. 

[Anonymous]

stuartw2112 wrote:

I will no longer be contributing to this forum due to the moronic moderation. I don't suppose anyone will care in my case, but assuming you care about your party's ongoing reputation for competence in debate, I'd get someone with some intelligence and discrimination to do the moderating.All the bestStuart

 I agree stuart and would go further. I do not recognise this forum as being worthy of being part of the world socialist movement.

[robbo203]

Vin wrote:

stuartw2112 wrote:

I will no longer be contributing to this forum due to the moronic moderation. I don't suppose anyone will care in my case, but assuming you care about your party's ongoing reputation for competence in debate, I'd get someone with some intelligence and discrimination to do the moderating.All the bestStuart

 I agree stuart and would go further. I do not recognise this forum as being worthy of being part of the world socialist movement.

 I think thats a bit harsh Vin but I do largely go along with your criticism of the moderation procedure on this site and consider the suspension of Stuart to be quite apalling and utterly short-sighted.Ive increasingly come to the view that the problem really centres on the abritrary ruling on what constitutes off topic posts.  I propose a radical break and that this whole rule be scrapped completely. If the drift of the discussion moves well away from the original title of the thread so be it.  What's wrong with that?  There is usually some kind of underlying dynamic steering the direction of the thread, anyway and it is far better to let the conversation flow naturally than railroad it along narrow rigid  lines. Where is the harm in doing this.  Let the contributors themselves / not the moderators – remind each other if the conversation is seemingly getting a bit too off topic in their judgement – they can always start up new threads if they are that unhappy. This will immediately and dramatically reduce the scope for conflict between moderators and contributors  and reduce the workload of the former.There is too much control freakery in the Party as it is and this is perhaps part of the reason why it is languishing.  Dressing it up in the name  of democracy is all very well but you do need to balance that with other concerns – like freedom of expression, for instance

[moderator1]

robbo203 wrote:

Vin wrote:

stuartw2112 wrote:

I will no longer be contributing to this forum due to the moronic moderation. I don't suppose anyone will care in my case, but assuming you care about your party's ongoing reputation for competence in debate, I'd get someone with some intelligence and discrimination to do the moderating.All the bestStuart

 I agree stuart and would go further. I do not recognise this forum as being worthy of being part of the world socialist movement.

 I think thats a bit harsh Vin but I do largely go along with your criticism of the moderation procedure on this site and consider the suspension of Stuart to be quite apalling and utterly short-sighted.Ive increasingly come to the view that the problem really centres on the abritrary ruling on what constitutes off topic posts.  I propose a radical break and that this whole rule be scrapped completely. If the drift of the discussion moves well away from the original title of the thread so be it.  What's wrong with that?  There is usually some kind of underlying dynamic steering the direction of the thread, anyway and it is far better to let the conversation flow naturally than railroad it along narrow rigid  lines. Where is the harm in doing this.  Let the contributors themselves / not the moderators – remind each other if the conversation is seemingly getting a bit too off topic in their judgement – they can always start up new threads if they are that unhappy. This will immediately and dramatically reduce the scope for conflict between moderators and contributors  and reduce the workload of the former.There is too much control freakery in the Party as it is and this is perhaps part of the reason why it is languishing.  Dressing it up in the name  of democracy is all very well but you do need to balance that with other concerns – like freedom of expression, for instance

Robbo please look at #76&78 on the 'Moderation suggestions' thread in this section.  If you have any further comments to add please make them in that thread.  Skip #77 it lacks sincerity!

[Anonymous]

moderator1 wrote:

Robbo please look at #76&78 on the 'Moderation suggestions' thread in this section.  If you have any further comments to add please make them in that thread.  Skip #77 it lacks sincerity!

That is  maybe because you threw 'sincerity' out of the window by renaging and suspending a party member for simply asking a question of you.  Get off you power trip and allow free discussion. 'off topic' is no excuse to suspend. Admit it and move on  

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