We Disagree, We Dislike, We Hate - We Behave Civilly

[Vander]

Perhaps this is not the right tool to use, but I still admire and respect Ray's efforts.
I'd personally would like things to remain (and at times, be more) civil on this forum.

On other forums I frequent, things are NOT so civil; yet I find enjoyment and successes in those communities.  But I also recognize that many MM forum enthusiasts do not enjoy those communities and have limited their participation in them as a result.   

Is Ray so wrong in striving to maintain/build a civil community here?
Or is it that you feel this is just the wrong method?

And perhaps the tool is not the problem... just how the population is using it.  Just a thought.

[Deplorable, thank you!]

RANT ON----------

I will come right out and say it....

This system is about the stupidest thing you could have done to the forum RAY.

It has driven off a long time member and participant which is worth far more than anything this stupid system could ever accomplish in the positive......

I will smite you just because I can, as long as this system stays in place, the entire board can show off complete negative numbers and represent to the public that nobody likes anybody or how anyone posts......Since your goal was to "show off" to potential newbies how "civil" we are....

You have open protest against it, numerous people stepping up and saying it is stupid, childish, unnecessary, high schoolish, junior high schoolish, wont work as intended etc........

You know what I find pathetically funny......You are willing to (all on your own mind you) go out there and employ this as a new strategy without any support, but unwilling to try some other strategies that actually have support.........Why is that??


The whole Brent and Debbie name thing now...........WTF is that---that is even more stupid than smite and applaud...Are you somehow saying that you smite Brent? or dislike him? or is it Debbie?
 I am unclear which is the good and which is the evil??? I like them both, should I hit both buttons??

So in your effort to "recruit" new members driving a wedge further between some existing members is okay? IS it a better alternative?
 I for one sure don't see it and it certainly sounds and looks to me like others don't either.

YOUR idea is stupid and it is flawed. Have you not been paying attention to the reactions to it.....I know your birthday was recently, but you are not so old that you went cuckoo are you? I mean I hope not, I like riding with you (sans the first ride of the year)

You said it yourself this was on the heals of one of my postings, so clearly I am to blame......what do you want me to do about, so everyone else doesn't have to suffer?

you don't want me to hammer people......well then they should not post up riding on bald tires and defending it, or posting rides advertised as +10 and then run +40. They should not put up videos of "racetrack" type riding or showing the speedo sweeping past 100 mph...You know common sense things.....Take away those actions and I would have little to be hammering for their own good, about.....

How about you start by removing the first stupid action, subsequent reactions and actions wouldn't come to light and the issues would be far less frequent... Or I am to blame for their stupidity and ignorance too ?....

This system is doomed to fail, it is only a matter of time, why not cut it off now before anyone else gets hurt.....

Brent me is you agree, or is it Debbie me if you agree......


RANT OFF-------

[pkpk]

Whoa, Lloyd, take a breath friend.  I think Ray is only trying to do a positive thing here.  From one friend to another, you need to temper your reactions.  You'd never survive in a corporate world by getting 200+ uptight when you perceive an idea that doesn't suit you.  I think Ray is getting the feedback he is looking  for by the dissatisfied comments. 

It gets back to the whole point, I think.  At some point we all need to learn to play together in the sandbox.  Breath....breath......we (well I and many who I know) like you, but not so much at your reactions (I know you know this.)

[Jvs]

Though the rating would be nice, I see it like big brother government. There's really only so much you can try to limit before you'll realize it simply won't work.

If you haven't ridden with someone before just send some pm's around and I'm sure it won't take long to find out how a person rides and what kind of person they are.

Beyond that it's just a matter of time and getting out before you find who's riding styles you Are compatible with. Doesn't the old saying go, anyone who's driving slower than you is an idiot for going so slow and the person who's driving faster is an idiot for going so fast?

[Ray916MN]

You said it yourself this was on the heals of one of my postings, so clearly I am to blame......what do you want me to do about, so everyone else doesn't have to suffer?

You are not to blame, but let me make something absolutely clear.

You need to act civilly.

[Deplorable, thank you!]

You said it yourself this was on the heals of one of my postings, so clearly I am to blame......what do you want me to do about, so everyone else doesn't have to suffer?

You are not to blame, but let me make something absolutely clear.

You need to act civilly.

 So do I understand this to mean only I need to, or would the wording have been better as "everyone needs to act civilly" so everyone gets the message....


I don't know, perhaps it just me, but it sure appears to be a statement only aimed towards me. Is that civil? Perhaps just a choice of words faux pas.

[Ray916MN]

You said it yourself this was on the heals of one of my postings, so clearly I am to blame......what do you want me to do about, so everyone else doesn't have to suffer?

You are not to blame, but let me make something absolutely clear.

You need to act civilly.

 So do I understand this to mean only I need to, or would the wording have been better as "everyone needs to act civilly" so everyone gets the message....


I don't know, perhaps it just me, but it sure appears to be a statement only aimed towards me. Is that civil? Perhaps just a choice of words faux pas.

Look at what you wrote in the post that I responded to. I directly answered the question you posed.

[Ray916MN]

Let me make it clear that the Debby and Brent change came from PMing with Brent and Debby earlier this day and joking around. It was doen with their permission with the intent of getting people to lighten up. It was also done to demonstrate that we of course can do different things with "Karma". I was surprised it triggered an example of the lack of civility which is at issue.

At this point we have a few options. The objective is to have a means of maintaining a civil discourse on the forum in the face of disagreements, dislike and hate. I'm echoing the title of the post to make sure the objective here is not lost again.

The following is by no means a comprehensive list of things we can do and I encourage everyone to put forth their ideas as well as their  comments on the different options we have.

1. We can get rid of Karma and not do any rating system, and I can begin to moderate and administrate the board based on what I consider civil behavior. Unlike the rule against personal attacks, I do not have a succinct way of defining civility, so if anyone wants to suggest one to go along with this option, I'm all ears. Without such a suggestion, I'm asking implicitly for everyone to agree to trust and support my judgement on what civil behavior is. No matter how I look at this personally my problem with it, is it is censorship.

2. We can implement Karma, we can change the way it is implemented, we can change "Debby" and "Brent" to whatever we want, we can make the number a total of the count of the Debby's and Brent's people receive and we can extend the period which people have to wait before they can give a member a Debby or Brent.

3. We can try to implement the system that Ben suggested, http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1890read about it here, so that posts are rated as positive of negative or positively only and users get a "Respect" rating based on the cumulative ratings of all their posts. My guess is I can do it. It will probably a bit of time for me to get it done, and once it gets done the risk we will have problems due to forum updates, should be small, but it is there.

4. People can simply report posts they feel aren't civil and once I get a certain number of reports, for example 3, I can delete the post. The problem with this approach is that once people start responding to a post, it becomes much more difficult to edit or delete a post. You can end up having to delete the quoted sections of posts and in some cases this may render some parts of a response nonsensical, so the question becomes whether responses to uncivil posts, which quote uncivil posts, but don't contain uncivil content need to be edited so they make sense.

Of course, we can also do any combination of the preceding. What other ideas and comments do people have?

[pkpk]

Ray, #4 is the closest to my vote but at even that I think you are advocating something too close to a democracy. 

That might sound strange, but the best forums I know of have a few pretty strong personalities who decide when enough is enough.  If a poster steps over the line, the post is gone, plain and simple.  In fact, on one board it's a bragging point to have a post yanked. 

Personally I think you are trying to appease everyone too much.   Why not just start deciding yourself what is appropriate and what is not?  Anyone that disagrees can start their own club.

[Mike Duluth]

I think we need to back this thing up just a little bit. All of you that make this the best club to be in are butting heads. Look at all the great stuf that comes out of this group of people. This internet thing is too easy to distort, when you say something with no expression on your face (and there is no face here) it is always serious.
   In my opinion if something is important enough to change, then it is important enough to meet face to face. Just seems to me the argument has become more important than the subject here.

[Duc Man]

As usual there is a strong division on what started as a simple change in the forum and its blown up in to a BIG deal. Publicly disagreeing on this forum has turned in to ongoing feuds with a cold war type scenario with guns aimed at each other at all times and looking for a reason to start shooting when certain people speak just to publicly disagree and stir up another round of as the world turns. This "agree with me or your wrong" type attitude and never backing down scares away new comers and driving away current members from entering discussions and rides. The karma system was implemented to quietly and anonymously disagree with a member since the playground constantly turns in to a war zone. Does this then become such a BIG deal because we now have a way to disagree with someone and that person can't open a direct attack to retaliate? That was my first thought...It's a way to disagree without getting in to it, not everyone wants to be told they're wrong.

 I would like to see this forum get back to the old MNSportbike days where we organized rides shared tips and routes with fun discussions about our hobby we all enjoy. Its more like a war zone.

Our threads are looking like the family that fights every time we say something, we have become numb to it like the alcoholic uncle who gets a few sips in him at thanksgiving and starts shooting his mouth off but to the outside world looking in it looks like a dysfunctional mess that deters newcomers and silences the current ones.

[flyinlow]

Ray, I think you should take your 4 ideas and post a poll, let people vote and go with what the majority wants to do

[Ray916MN]

Ray, I think you should take your 4 ideas and post a poll, let people vote and go with what the majority wants to do

That's where I'm headed, but I want to make sure we get everything out so there is no after the fact points being made that cause people to say we should have another poll on the topic.

[Ray916MN]

A 5th unusual option would be to make all the boards in the forum have the same permissions as the safety and riding tips sub forum. This would give every original poster the ability to completely moderate any topic they started, and would mean that each an every thread would reflect the original poster's intent and sensibilities. This option would mean that anyone reading a thread would recognize the thread as being representative of the original poster. I think it would lessen the hesitancy to start topics of some members, since they would have nearly complete control over any topic they started

It would also mean that people who wanted to express counterpoints, views or other sensibilities that the original poster of another thread was editing out, or deleting, would be driven to start their own thread, which they could use to make the points they wished.

The approach would mute the confrontation of discussions to the degree anyone was comfortable or uncomfortable with it.

It is an unusual option as I have never seen a forum run with these permissions so it might in practice end up being very different from what we might think it will be and since it is such a fundamental change to the context of threads, unlike Karma once done it would be a different thing to undo. As it is unusual, its implications might also be very confusing to people who are new to the forum.

It could also be implemented in a separate sub forum so people who wanted to post under these permissions could do so if they choose and people who preferred to post under traditional permissions could do so, or it could be implemented so users could select to use these types of permissions everywhere in the forum and some could select not to, and the type of permissions a member selected would be indicated in their profile.

Lastly if we really wanted to make things complicated, this could be implemented in conjunction with any of the other options.

I find it pretty interesting that no one has really commented about the special permissions that have been established for the Safety and Riding Tips section.

[carlson_mn]

Ray, I think the special permissions works well in the wiki-style Safety Forum.  I agree with you that I think it would be a little weird implemented on the rest of the forum.