I know that I am not perfect and I do sometimes forget to dot my i's and cross my T"s at times, but name calling at someone because they do not agree with you on your own politics or think that a post is not to their liking or do not like the individual in the first place is not right. It is meaningless! EspePcially when its just a topic that discusses a simple road issue, its not worth raising your blood pressure over! If you do not like ones opinion, than do not even post against it AT ALL!
Plus, I see many topics that started as one discussion end up as another one many times here and other forums. I had one myself I started that changed direction, but you do not see me bashing those who started talking about something different than I started out with! So why not respect those who do not agree with you or whom you feel do not belong here. There is no reason for this at all. This is supposed to be a friendly place to discuss roads and related topics. If you feel one person is posting wrong, tell him to kindly go to the right topic or start a new topic, or not say anything at all.
Thank you!
+1
Agreed. I disagree with some folks here, but some of the recent flame fests are a bit over the top.
Agreed as well.
Though, I sheepishly have to admit to get involved in some "flame wars" and I'm starting to learn that sometimes I need to back away from a topic for awhile.
What used to be called Netiquette, I think can be achieved here. i.e. civility
But, flame wars will always be lurking on this board since the vast majority of the highway systems of the roads are creatures of one government or another and politics can never be completely avoided.
You don't even have to cloak it in netiquette or civility or any fancy term.
It's pretty simple- don't say anything that you wouldn't say if this were a real-life gathering. If what you're saying would get your ass kicked in real life, don't say it unless you want your ass kicked. Don't hide behind the cloak of the internet to be mean to people.
Before posting, just ask yourself if you would actually say whatever it is you're saying to whoever you're responding to if you were sitting next to them at a bar. Very easy.
So, what's wrong with taking the high road and letting it go?
If I'm at a bar and I perceive someone else as being annoying, I look the other direction. Unless they're hurting me or actively trying to cause problems, it's none of my worry. They're not affecting me in any way, so why should I care?
Different strokes for different folks- I may not like what you like, but that doesn't mean we have to call each other out every time. If you don't like it and it's not truly offensive, ignore it.
That's what reasonable people do.
From Xkcd.com:
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimgs.xkcd.com%2Fcomics%2Fduty_calls.png&hash=83f2d5613eca056726a4d403c246774dfc2f7bce)
--and yes, I have fallen into that trap too.
This is a thread for generalities. I have removed the specific instances of finger pointing, which ironically go against the spirit the thread was attempting to express.
The administration shares the point of view of the OP in this case. Be nice. This is not a place for discord. If you want to flame, you know where MTR is. Here we pride ourselves on an enhanced quality of discussion over that of MTR, which is implemented partially by means of moderation. If moderation is what we must to resort to in order to deal with the recent spate of incivility, we certainly will.
If you have problems with a specific member or post please contact the administration and we will deal with it.
I am now re-opening this thread. Don't let it veer off like that again.
Quote from: Scott5114 on June 05, 2011, 05:14:51 PM
If you have problems with a specific member or post please contact the administration and we will deal with it.
I've been told that my use of the 'report' feature was annoying the administration. Is this still true?
The problem with the report feature is that it automatically sends an email to all admins. Therefore we would prefer it be used sparingly. Unless it is a pressing matter it's usually overkill for most things.
For less urgent issues the best way to proceed is often to PM the moderator assigned to that section (or any admin/global mod if there is no assigned moderator). Whenever a mod or admin is approached privately about a non-trivial issue they will pass the details on to everyone else and we make a decision on what to do from there. (For more minor, non-contentious issues like thread merges/splits/wrong board/whatever the moderator can perform whatever action is necessary themselves.)
Quote from: Scott5114 on June 05, 2011, 05:56:39 PM
The problem with the report feature is that it automatically sends an email to all admins. Therefore we would prefer it be used sparingly. Unless it is a pressing matter it's usually overkill for most things.
That's good to know. Even the times I've used it, I wouldn't have if it went to ALL admins. (Especially in a case or two, an admin was one I had the beef with.)
If you have a problem with an admin or mod in particular, Steve is probably the best one to contact, or Alex as a last resort. Alex has the final say on everything around here but he tries to focus on administering the actual AARoads site and leave the forum administration to Steve and the rest of us as much as possible.
I'm nominally in charge of adminning the admins, which is why my name came up. I know a lot of people who post here, but not all. My philosophy is to try to resolve differences between intelligent members in constructive ways, and to find reasons to get rid of stupid members (or at least try to get them to post a little smarter). Feel free to message me anytime.
Quote from: Steve on June 05, 2011, 10:06:00 PM
I'm nominally in charge of adminning the admins, which is why my name came up.
Is that anything like Watching the Watchmen? ;)
Quote from: Scott5114 on June 05, 2011, 05:56:39 PM
The problem with the report feature is that it automatically sends an email to all admins. Therefore we would prefer it be used sparingly. Unless it is a pressing matter it's usually overkill for most things.
For less urgent issues the best way to proceed is often to PM the moderator assigned to that section (or any admin/global mod if there is no assigned moderator). Whenever a mod or admin is approached privately about a non-trivial issue they will pass the details on to everyone else and we make a decision on what to do from there. (For more minor, non-contentious issues like thread merges/splits/wrong board/whatever the moderator can perform whatever action is necessary themselves.)
If you don't mind a suggestion, the information you've give here would be useful stuff to add to the "Forum Guidelines" post, perhaps in a re-worded way as I understand the concern that you don't want to advertise that the "Report" function e-mails all of you at the same time because that knowledge itself might lend itself to abuse!
I must have missed something, because I did not see the "flame wars" that resulted in this thread being started.
Quote from: hbelkins on June 06, 2011, 11:22:33 AM
I must have missed something, because I did not see the "flame wars" that resulted in this thread being started.
Then I did my job :)
Quote from: Scott5114 on June 05, 2011, 05:14:51 PM
Here we pride ourselves on an enhanced quality of discussion over that of MTR, which is implemented partially by means of moderation.
Then if I may make a suggestion, at the risk of picking nits, the following needs more attention paid to it:
-lack of concision in thread titles
-not perfect, but proper grammar and spelling
-mangled quotes seem to be on the rise again
It's not an overwhelming issue, but some items on here are hard to parse.
Quote from: InterstateNG on June 07, 2011, 12:54:02 PM
-lack of concision in thread titles
I never thought of this as an issue. are the thread titles so long that they are not easy to parse from a forum's thread list?
(I always use the "most recent posts" view - so I barely know what the thread titles even are!)
Personally, I think the opposite is the problem. We have threads such as "Pennsylvania" and I keep thinking "What about Pennsylvania?". I have to read the thread just to determine if I'm interested in reading the thread!
I don't know of any thread titles that should cause issues, unless you're posting from a phone or something.
The Florida thread is a general dumping ground for Florida discussion. I've tried to do the same with a few other states but it may not have taken hold.
I avoid moderating spelling/grammar because otherwise 80% of posts would say "Last edited" and we'd have nightly discussions/flame wars on Oxford commas. As long as I can get through a post, I'm fine. That said, if I'm in there to edit factual mistakes or broken links, I may clean things up.
Quote from: deanej on June 07, 2011, 05:25:47 PM
Personally, I think the opposite is the problem. We have threads such as "Pennsylvania" and I keep thinking "What about Pennsylvania?". I have to read the thread just to determine if I'm interested in reading the thread!
I have brought this up to the other mods before (even splitting up some of these threads) and reaction was mixed; some of them think that this is a good way to consolidate more specialized topics that might only get a few replies. If others feel the same way I might start a public discussion about it so we can see how the userbase feels about that.
Personally I think that they should be split, simply because that prevents two threads of thought from intermixing, which can be hard to follow sometimes.
Quote from: Scott5114 on June 07, 2011, 11:49:45 AM
Quote from: hbelkins on June 06, 2011, 11:22:33 AM
I must have missed something, because I did not see the "flame wars" that resulted in this thread being started.
Then I did my job :)
Good job, Wikipedia admin. :P
Quote from: Scott5114 on June 07, 2011, 10:55:25 PM
Quote from: deanej on June 07, 2011, 05:25:47 PM
Personally, I think the opposite is the problem. We have threads such as "Pennsylvania" and I keep thinking "What about Pennsylvania?". I have to read the thread just to determine if I'm interested in reading the thread!
I have brought this up to the other mods before (even splitting up some of these threads) and reaction was mixed; some of them think that this is a good way to consolidate more specialized topics that might only get a few replies. If others feel the same way I might start a public discussion about it so we can see how the userbase feels about that.
Personally I think that they should be split, simply because that prevents two threads of thought from intermixing, which can be hard to follow sometimes.
I prefer more specific topic titles rather than the general topics with just a state name. The state name ones get pretty long and then it makes it hard to ever get into it unless you read the entire thread from the beginning because there are constant references to previous posts and comments. I tend to avoid the topics with just a state name because as the other poster above says, you have to actually open the thread to find out whether any posts interest you.