Proposal: Open Staff forum periodically

[Jobar]

On a couple of other threads, I've put it forth that TR should, every six months, put all the threads in the SF into a read-only forum visible to all registered members.

IOW, on TR's first birthday, a forum is created with all the SF threads from the beginning to six months. At 1 1/2 years, all the SF threads from 6 months to 1 year old are added. And so forth.

Since occasionally there is information bandied about which should be kept from the public eye- e-mail and physical addresses, real names not already in public view, and the like- all such information should be blanked out. In fact it would be a good idea for the officials to post anything like that in color, to make the editing job simpler.

I'm quite aware that even things that are six months to a year old, will probably bring out some drama llamas. But if this board is to be run as some analog of a republic, then we the people need to be able to eventually see all the things that those running the board have said and done. It would be well for all those with authority to remember, that their star chamber is not totally private.

[dug_down_deep]

I agree. Except I would grandfather the threads that already exist. Posting there with the knowledge it will be made public is one thing -- having posted there under the agreement that it would be confidential, and then having that trust violated is another.

[deadman_932]

I agreed a while back. I put this in another thread (http://www.talkrational.org/showpost.php?p=23078&postcount=97):

One of the primary complaints that people *leaving* IIDB had was that they were not allowed to see/publicize the inner workings. This created serious problems.
I will repeat again: Transparency may be work-intensive, especially with redaction, BUT...

1) Transparency helps to prevent idle chit-chat. It enforces greater professionalism.

2.) It stems user fears and the growth of user paranoia.

3.) It discourages quid-pro-quo "alliances" that can be discerned from patterns of cooperation between mods and admins (personally, this is my favorite point).

I see all of the things I just listed as being good. I'd hope the issue does not just get dropped. I like my ememies, I know EXACTLY where I stand with them...I have no illusions about "community."

All I am asking is that *if* you REALLY want to establish something more than what you had before...you'd better remember the complaints and issues raised in other settings -- they were many of your own complaints.

I sure hope this issue gets more consideration.

Edit: I have to agree with grandfathering current threads.

[Worldtraveller]

I like this idea. I'm ok with not grandfathering anything either, but that can be voted on. Mostly because of the expectations of other mods and admins up to this point.

[deadman_932]

Good, With this, (1) "opening the books," so to speak...with (2) whistleblower protection and with (3) a SOLID, multi-purpose "Freedom of Information Act" then there'd be a minimal set of checks and balances that prevent ...usurpation, etc.

[Pavlov's Dog]

I agree. Except I would grandfather the threads that already exist. Posting there with the knowledge it will be made public is one thing -- having posted there under the agreement that it would be confidential, and then having that trust violated is another.

Any posts after the whistleblower clause should not be exempted, because they should have realized the possibility that the posts could be exposed.

None of this changes how I feel about the thread about me.

[mac_philo]

It should apply to all posts after April 03 (http://www.talkrational.org/showpost.php?p=21319&postcount=4), when all policy-relevant expectations of privacy officially terminated under clear and explicit conditions.

Any talk of pre-April 03 posts should be a distinct proposal.

[deadman_932]

Agreed, and a good compromise.

I really wish there was a way of organizing all these bits and pieces listed above to actually be voted on by the members at large and accepted/denied.

This is all a lot of work, though, and I'm not involved -- so I feel slightly guilty bringing it up. I will never be anything but a user here or anywhere.

[dug_down_deep]

Any posts after the whistleblower clause should not be exempted, because they should have realized the possibility that the posts could be exposed.
Should have? I don't think that's a good enough basis for violating that trust, but I'm only one opinion. I agree with mac_philo that it's probably best made a separate discussion.

None of this changes how I feel about the thread about me.
Never thought otherwise. Nor said so.

[Pavlov's Dog]

To be honest, I don't really care that the staff had an expectation that they could gossip behind the backs of members without it being exposed. I have no problem with the original complaint, made by a non staff member is removed, but the staff should know better or not be staff.

[mac_philo]

April 03 is the date I identify with the whistleblower clause, so we must all agree.

I'm just clarifying the idea and saying it's better than the current system. Real-time openness would be better, but that doesn't preclude me from supporting this. It would be a big improvement.

[deadman_932]

Agreed, and a good compromise.

I really wish there was a way of organizing all these bits and pieces listed above to actually be voted on by the members at large and accepted/denied.

This is all a lot of work, though, and I'm not involved -- so I feel slightly guilty bringing it up. I will never be anything but a user here or anywhere.

I should think before I post. Rather than voting on bits and pieces first, it would likely be easier to put together the package as much as possible, then have people argue over the bits and pieces, to see what can be amended or struck down.

[Pavlov's Dog]

April 03 is the date I identify with the whistleblower clause, so we must all agree.

I'm just clarifying the idea and saying it's better than the current system. Real-time openness would be better, but that doesn't preclude me from supporting this. It would be a big improvement.

I support this proposal, but I am not giving up on viewing my thread.

[His Noodly Appendage]

You know, I have a proposal of my own:

As a matter of policy, verbally abusive requests are denied with prejudice.

[Pavlov's Dog]

You know, I have a proposal of my own:

As a matter of policy, verbally abusive requests are denied with prejudice.

Could somebody move this thread to the charred remains. It is not remotely on topic.

[Bright Life]

I think Jobar's proposal is excellent.

[ravenscape]

I like this proposal also. I need some time to noodle on it, but it makes sense to me now.

[Quizalufagus]

I like this proposal, but I'd never be in favor of it if it were made retroactive. The stuff that we all agreed would be private should remain so.

[RexT]

I'm inclined to go with an idea like this too. Like raven, I'll need some time to think on it.

I guess the thing I like about it is that it puts a buffer between information and events. So our every move isn't picked to death and yet, it adds a layer of transparency. I guess we'll need to start getting in the habit of color coding personal information.

[RBH]

Agreed, and a good compromise.

I really wish there was a way of organizing all these bits and pieces listed above to actually be voted on by the members at large and accepted/denied.

This is all a lot of work, though, and I'm not involved -- so I feel slightly guilty bringing it up. I will never be anything but a user here or anywhere.

I should think before I post. Rather than voting on bits and pieces first, it would likely be easier to put together the package as much as possible, then have people argue over the bits and pieces, to see what can be amended or struck down.One of the admins will no doubt get that job, as was the case with the drafts of the other policies that are out there now in final, near-final, and draft form. That's partly why derailments and O/T sniping are irritating, because they lower the signal to noise ratio and make it more of a chore to dredge the good stuff out of a thread like this.

[Octavia]

^Oh, that sounds like a fun job. :D

I support the idea, though - although in fairness to those who posted in the expectation of privacy before April 3, I'd support the grandfathering out idea.

Putting editable details in colour is a good idea - especially if admins edit them out as we go (say, a week or two after the thread is done with) so the job at the end isn't so fucking massive.

[umop apisdn w,I]

My thoughts on this are based on a pragmatic stance rather than going with what my idealistic one would be...

1) The whole point of a private staff forum is that the staff can be relaxed about discussing things openly there with the expectation that things won't be picked over and quibbled about by people with an axe to grind. Making things public after a time period has expired just completely negates the point of that because people will be quibbling about old grievances while we are supposed to be sorting out current events.

2) If people know that what they say somewhere will be read by the people they are talking about, they'll just sanitize that discussion and the real discussion will happen via PM or email or chat or whatever other really private medium is available. It's what happened at IIDB when we were discussing another staff member, and it is what happens at RnR where there is no private staff forum. Those asking for all discussions to be made public aren't living in the real world unless they want the PM system to be disabled and they want any other communication between people banned. It's just not practical to want to stop people talking amongst themselves before making public statements - and if you accept that it is going to happen anyway then there is no point making things more awkward for the staff, since that way it will be more difficult to recruit and keep staff.

3) From a practical point of view, going through a year's worth of threads and checking for anything that needs to be snipped out - and discussing what needs to be snipped out (which discussion in itself will have to be snipped out the following year) is a huge waste of time and effort for very little gain.

[DMB]

I agree entirely with Dean (I can't keep typing all that umop stuff).

ETA If one goes back to the Nixon case, the tapes shocked a lot of people at the time, but the real spade work was done elsewhere and whistleblowers were involved.

[Jet Black]

I just say umop. I never worked out what Etaoin Shrdlu was.

I do see umop's point here.

I think the main intention of the idea is to ensure that nothing dodgy is going on in the staff forum, and to my eye, that would be the point of the ombudsman. Not everyone is as brazen as PD for example, and would not feel comfortable with having to defend themselves that harshly. I think the privacy of the staff forum allows people to more accurately voice their real opinions on the matter in a way that they would not in public. Not everyone can stand the glare of the public eye, and I don't think that being able to do so should be a prerequisite for being on staff.

[Preno]

I support this as a step in the right direction and presume that everyone who has so far agreed with it has forfeited their right to use the non-disclosure of complaints about other users as an argument against opening the forum.

[David B]

April 03 is the date I identify with the whistleblower clause, so we must all agree.

I'm just clarifying the idea and saying it's better than the current system. Real-time openness would be better, but that doesn't preclude me from supporting this. It would be a big improvement.

April 3 could work, though the date that when Jobar's suggestion becomes policy would also be a sensible starting date, should the policy become policy.

I remain against it, personally.

There was a deal of discussion in the Staff Phorum about whether it should be made public, and it was then decided that it should remain private largely for the reasons outlined by Dean, above in the thread.

David B

[Reverend Spanky]

My thoughts on this are based on a pragmatic stance rather than going with what my idealistic one would be...

1) The whole point of a private staff forum is that the staff can be relaxed about discussing things openly there with the expectation that things won't be picked over and quibbled about by people with an axe to grind. Making things public after a time period has expired just completely negates the point of that because people will be quibbling about old grievances while we are supposed to be sorting out current events.


You don't want public scrutiny of what you say. We get that. People in power should be protected from the common users, etc.


2) If people know that what they say somewhere will be read by the people they are talking about, they'll just sanitize that discussion and the real discussion will happen via PM or email or chat or whatever other really private medium is available. It's what happened at IIDB when we were discussing another staff member, and it is what happens at RnR where there is no private staff forum. Those asking for all discussions to be made public aren't living in the real world unless they want the PM system to be disabled and they want any other communication between people banned. It's just not practical to want to stop people talking amongst themselves before making public statements - and if you accept that it is going to happen anyway then there is no point making things more awkward for the staff, since that way it will be more difficult to recruit and keep staff.


1) Instances exist where discussions were taken to another format because of a lack of privacy

2) This means that any transparency is flawed.

3) Anyone who suggests otherwise is delusional.


3) From a practical point of view, going through a year's worth of threads and checking for anything that needs to be snipped out - and discussing what needs to be snipped out (which discussion in itself will have to be snipped out the following year) is a huge waste of time and effort for very little gain.

It would be work to open up our secret conversations.

You guys can't turn it off, can you? You got so accustomed to the power structure at IIDB that you are irreparably damaged by the experience. You simply cannot think of a situation where the users should have any business seeing what you discuss up on Mount Olympus.

[Febble]

I agree. Except I would grandfather the threads that already exist. Posting there with the knowledge it will be made public is one thing -- having posted there under the agreement that it would be confidential, and then having that trust violated is another.

Any posts after the whistleblower clause should not be exempted, because they should have realized the possibility that the posts could be exposed.

I agree.

[Ray Moscow]

My thoughts on this are based on a pragmatic stance rather than going with what my idealistic one would be...

1) The whole point of a private staff forum is that the staff can be relaxed about discussing things openly there with the expectation that things won't be picked over and quibbled about by people with an axe to grind. Making things public after a time period has expired just completely negates the point of that because people will be quibbling about old grievances while we are supposed to be sorting out current events.

2) If people know that what they say somewhere will be read by the people they are talking about, they'll just sanitize that discussion and the real discussion will happen via PM or email or chat or whatever other really private medium is available. It's what happened at IIDB when we were discussing another staff member, and it is what happens at RnR where there is no private staff forum. Those asking for all discussions to be made public aren't living in the real world unless they want the PM system to be disabled and they want any other communication between people banned. It's just not practical to want to stop people talking amongst themselves before making public statements - and if you accept that it is going to happen anyway then there is no point making things more awkward for the staff, since that way it will be more difficult to recruit and keep staff.

3) From a practical point of view, going through a year's worth of threads and checking for anything that needs to be snipped out - and discussing what needs to be snipped out (which discussion in itself will have to be snipped out the following year) is a huge waste of time and effort for very little gain.

All this makes sense to me, too. This "no private forum" idea will just destroy any effective board management, which I suppose is the main purpose behind it.

Anyway, if one thinks forum management are really such incompetent shitheads that they cannot be trusted to carry on forum business among themselves without continuous scrutiny from everyone else, then why does one participate on the forum?

The internet is a big place. Fly, be free. Start your own forum, even.

[Febble]

My thoughts on this are based on a pragmatic stance rather than going with what my idealistic one would be...

1) The whole point of a private staff forum is that the staff can be relaxed about discussing things openly there with the expectation that things won't be picked over and quibbled about by people with an axe to grind. Making things public after a time period has expired just completely negates the point of that because people will be quibbling about old grievances while we are supposed to be sorting out current events.

I don't think it completely negates the point - in fact it ameliorates it for me, because it obviates the problems of trying to do things in a committee of several hundred rather than a committee of 20 or so. And people in general are less exercised by old news than current dramas. I'd be happier with a rolling program though - where threads remained invisible for six months, then entered a visible archive. I don't know if that could be done automatically (and redaction of private informatoin might be a problem unless it was systematically coded at the time).

2) If people know that what they say somewhere will be read by the people they are talking about, they'll just sanitize that discussion and the real discussion will happen via PM or email or chat or whatever other really private medium is available. It's what happened at IIDB when we were discussing another staff member, and it is what happens at RnR where there is no private staff forum. Those asking for all discussions to be made public aren't living in the real world unless they want the PM system to be disabled and they want any other communication between people banned. It's just not practical to want to stop people talking amongst themselves before making public statements - and if you accept that it is going to happen anyway then there is no point making things more awkward for the staff, since that way it will be more difficult to recruit and keep staff.

Well, this still bothers me.

3) From a practical point of view, going through a year's worth of threads and checking for anything that needs to be snipped out - and discussing what needs to be snipped out (which discussion in itself will have to be snipped out the following year) is a huge waste of time and effort for very little gain.

Yes. Who will Bell the Cat?

[Reverend Spanky]

[
The internet is a big place. Fly, be free. Start your own forum, even.

Go along or get along, yes. You didn't have to make the implication explicit.

[meepmeep]

This "no private forum" idea will just destroy any effective board management, which I suppose is the main purpose behind it.

Why do you suppose that? I can only speak for myself, and that's not the purpose behind my support of more transparent management.

Anyway, if one thinks forum management are really such incompetent shitheads that they cannot be trusted to carry on forum business among themselves without continuous scrutiny from everyone else, then why does one participate on the forum?

It's not about incompetence. It's about accountability and how much effectiveness you're willing to sacrifice in exchange for it.

This is how I see it: everyone is biased. It's a part of being human. If you're going to have a forum where you moderate the content of people's posts, you have to be absolutely honest with yourself and admit your own personal biases and your limitations in objectively resolving problems involving other people. The consensus model for deciding mod/admin issues here is a good way of dealing with that, but only if there are checks that prevent the formation of group bias.

The internet is a big place. Fly, be free.

If it turns out I don't like it here, I'll just leave. No big deal. :dunno:

[Reverend Spanky]

ETA If one goes back to the Nixon case, the tapes shocked a lot of people at the time, but the real spade work was done elsewhere and whistleblowers were involved.

Yes, the smoking gun tape had nothing at all to do with Nixon's resignation. And historians haven't spent the decades afterward poring over the material on those tapes because they aren't an invaluable bit of insight into power politics gone wrong.

[Ray Moscow]

This "no private forum" idea will just destroy any effective board management, which I suppose is the main purpose behind it.

Why do you suppose that? I can only speak for myself, and that's not the purpose behind my support of more transparent management.


Check out a few of PD's comments yesterday about the incompetence of this forum's management, how untrustworthy they are, how cowardly they are, etc. This is not just a call for more transparency.

Personally I don't see how mod's and admin's can do their job if they cannot discuss issues among themselves privately to reach consensus. That's why I think this is just an attempt to keep them from doing their jobs. What you'll have instead are individual mod's acting unilaterally or just not acting at all.

This approach is fair enough for an unmanaged (and unmanageable) forum, but my understanding is the TR was to be a managed forum.

[meepmeep]

Check out a few of PD's comments yesterday about the incompetence of this forum's management, how untrustworthy they are, how cowardly they are, etc. There is not just a call for more transparency.

Okay, "there is not just a call for more transparency"...from PD. What about every other member here who is arguing for transparency? If I'm not mistaken, I think HNA also supports the idea of opening things up to some extent. Do you seriously think his goal is to destroy TR's forum management?

Personally I don't see how mod's and admin's can do their job if they cannot discuss issues among themselves privately to reach consensus. That's why I think this is just an attempt to keep them from doing their jobs. What you'll have instead are individual mod's acting unilaterally or just not acting at all.

I don't agree. More transparency does not automatically mean that management will fall apart.

This approach is fair enough for an unmanaged (and unmanageable) forum, but my understanding is the TR was to be a managed forum.

Yes, TR is not RnR, and it won't be. I don't think anyone here is even thinking about trying to make it into RnR. That'd be completely and utterly pointless.

[Arctish]

My thoughts on this are based on a pragmatic stance rather than going with what my idealistic one would be...

1) The whole point of a private staff forum is that the staff can be relaxed about discussing things openly there with the expectation that things won't be picked over and quibbled about by people with an axe to grind. Making things public after a time period has expired just completely negates the point of that because people will be quibbling about old grievances while we are supposed to be sorting out current events.


You don't want public scrutiny of what you say. We get that. People in power should be protected from the common users, etc.

I'm sorry to say apparently you don't get it, Spanky.

The first thing I learned at IIDB was DNFTT. IME trolls love nothing better than to tie up entire boards with their bullshit. Talking about how to respond to trolls and their bullshit in public while allowing the trolls to troll the discussion would be amusing in a Keystone Cops kind of way. It will also bring any rational discussions to a screeching halt.

As I understand it the purpose of having moderators here at TR is to keep the conversations flowing while keeping the trolls, spammers, and jerks from spoiling the fun. That requires some amount of behind the scene coordination and discussion.

At the moment the staff is trying to determine the absolute minimum of privacy needed for this board to function smoothly so that TR policy can be set to avoid exceeding it. That is the reason the ombudsman position is being created - it is a voluntary check on this "power" you seem to think we are hoarding. It is why several moderators have told Rathpig he'd be more than welcome in that position. Rathpig can be trusted to fight against even a smidgen of excess in moderator or admin power. It is also the reason PD's request to make public any discussion of his posts is being given serious consideration.

If anyone here thinks it is recent events alone that has brought about discussion of opening the Staff forum to all members, please refer to this thread (http://http://www.talkrational.org/showthread.php?t=266). Discussion of full disclosure began almost as soon as the board was formed but until now have been on the back burner while other, more pressing matters were hammered out.





2) If people know that what they say somewhere will be read by the people they are talking about, they'll just sanitize that discussion and the real discussion will happen via PM or email or chat or whatever other really private medium is available. It's what happened at IIDB when we were discussing another staff member, and it is what happens at RnR where there is no private staff forum. Those asking for all discussions to be made public aren't living in the real world unless they want the PM system to be disabled and they want any other communication between people banned. It's just not practical to want to stop people talking amongst themselves before making public statements - and if you accept that it is going to happen anyway then there is no point making things more awkward for the staff, since that way it will be more difficult to recruit and keep staff.


1) Instances exist where discussions were taken to another format because of a lack of privacy

2) This means that any transparency is flawed.

3) Anyone who suggests otherwise is delusional.


3) From a practical point of view, going through a year's worth of threads and checking for anything that needs to be snipped out - and discussing what needs to be snipped out (which discussion in itself will have to be snipped out the following year) is a huge waste of time and effort for very little gain.

It would be work to open up our secret conversations.

You guys can't turn it off, can you? You got so accustomed to the power structure at IIDB that you are irreparably damaged by the experience. You simply cannot think of a situation where the users should have any business seeing what you discuss up on Mount Olympus.

Please look over the thread I linked and the other discussion which have taken place in recent days. You are painting with a very broad brush here and smearing people who actually agree with you on making staff discussions public.

[Ray Moscow]

What about every other member here who is arguing for transparency?

Others are accusing the management of abusing power -- look up, for example. (http://talkrational.org/showpost.php?p=24898&postcount=27) The supposed solution is to clip management's wings.

Frankly, I have not observed an abuse of power here and don't share this concern, nor do I think it's wise to take their power away. Some "power" is necessary to manage anything.


Personally I don't see how mod's and admin's can do their job if they cannot discuss issues among themselves privately to reach consensus. That's why I think this is just an attempt to keep them from doing their jobs. What you'll have instead are individual mod's acting unilaterally or just not acting at all.

I don't agree. More transparency does not automatically mean that management will fall apart.

And I disagree with you, in turn.

This approach is fair enough for an unmanaged (and unmanageable) forum, but my understanding is the TR was to be a managed forum.

Yes, TR is not RnR, and it won't be. I don't think anyone here is even thinking about trying to make it into RnR. That'd be completely and utterly pointless.[/QUOTE]

Agreed, but I think that's where this is headed.

[Reverend Spanky]

I'm sorry to say apparently you don't get it, Spanky.

The first thing I learned at IIDB was DNFTT. IME trolls love nothing better than to tie up entire boards with their bullshit. Talking about how to respond to trolls and their bullshit in public while allowing the trolls to troll the discussion would be amusing in a Keystone Cops kind of way. It will also bring any rational discussions to a screeching halt.


How does the troll tie up an entire board if nobody feeds it? Are they magic? Also, you have some rather firm moderation policies in place already. Quit acting like you would not be able to move off topic things to off topic places.


At the moment the staff is trying to determine the absolute minimum of privacy needed for this board to function smoothly so that TR policy can be set to avoid exceeding it. That is the reason the ombudsman position is being created - it is a voluntary check on this "power" you seem to think we are hoarding. It is why several moderators have told Rathpig he'd be more than welcome in that position. Rathpig can be trusted to fight against even a smidgen of excess in moderator or admin power. It also the reason PD's request to make public any discussion of his posts is being given serious consideration.


Placing your trust in people rather than open institutions is flawed.


Please look over the thread I linked and the other discussion which have taken place in recent days. You are painting with a very broad brush here and smearing people who actually agree with you on making staff discussions public.

If you read yourself or any supporter of open governance into that statement that's telling. Why would you think I'm talking about you? Who did you think I was referring to?

[meepmeep]

At the moment the staff is trying to determine the absolute minimum of privacy needed for this board to function smoothly so that TR policy can be set to avoid exceeding it. That is the reason the ombudsman position is being created - it is a voluntary check on this "power" you seem to think we are hoarding. It is why several moderators have told Rathpig he'd be more than welcome in that position. Rathpig can be trusted to fight against even a smidgen of excess in moderator or admin power. It also the reason PD's request to make public any discussion of his posts is being given serious consideration.

Please correct me if I'm wrong - the way I understand the current ombudsman proposal, the ombudsman would only be granted access to materials pertaining to a specific situation only when the member involved requests it. Do you think it might be better to give an ombudsman read-only access to the entire staff forum so that he or she has an idea of what's going on? My concern is that if the ombudsman only has access to cases where someone complains that other actions could possibly go unnoticed.

Others are accusing the management of abusing power -- look up, for example. (http://talkrational.org/showpost.php?p=24898&postcount=27) The supposed solution is to clip management's wings.

So that's PD and Reverend Spanky. What about everyone else who supports more transparency? Rathpig? HNA? (Again, correct me if I'm wrong about his position) Me?

Agreed, but I think that's where this is headed.

So you have no concern for a potential abuse of power despite the fact that the staff forum is currently structured almost the same way that the IIDB staff forum was structured, yet you are concerned that people from RnR are going to come here and force it to become a replica. I see. :dunno:

The only way that this place could turn into RnR is if you replace everyone on staff and a majority of the posters. I don't see that happening.

[Reverend Spanky]

Others are accusing the management of abusing power -- look up, for example. (http://talkrational.org/showpost.php?p=24898&postcount=27) The supposed solution is to clip management's wings.


Last time I checked, when I accused management of abusing power it is because they were. But don't let that get in the way of a nice argument.

My participation in this thread is to see whether or not measures can be put in place to reduce the potential for recurring abuses.

[Arctish]

I'm sorry to say apparently you don't get it, Spanky.

The first thing I learned at IIDB was DNFTT. IME trolls love nothing better than to tie up entire boards with their bullshit. Talking about how to respond to trolls and their bullshit in public while allowing the trolls to troll the discussion would be amusing in a Keystone Cops kind of way. It will also bring any rational discussions to a screeching halt.


How does the troll tie up an entire board if nobody feeds it? Are they magic? Also, you have some rather firm moderation policies in place already. Quit acting like you would not be able to move off topic things to off topic places.

Allowing a troll to troll the discussion of what to do about the troll is feeding it. Allowing the troll to create more trolling threads about the thread about trolling is feeding it. Haven't you seen trolls in action? They're attention whores of the first order.

I disagree with you WRT the firmness of TR moderation policies. This is a new board and a lot of changes and adjustments are being made daily. Nothing has been set in stone, and perhaps nothing ever will be.


At the moment the staff is trying to determine the absolute minimum of privacy needed for this board to function smoothly so that TR policy can be set to avoid exceeding it. That is the reason the ombudsman position is being created - it is a voluntary check on this "power" you seem to think we are hoarding. It is why several moderators have told Rathpig he'd be more than welcome in that position. Rathpig can be trusted to fight against even a smidgen of excess in moderator or admin power. It also the reason PD's request to make public any discussion of his posts is being given serious consideration.


Placing your trust in people rather than open institutions is flawed.

Perhaps so, but nothing is perfect. Placing some of your trust in a good system and some of your trust in good people is IMO a sensible compromise.


Please look over the thread I linked and the other discussion which have taken place in recent days. You are painting with a very broad brush here and smearing people who actually agree with you on making staff discussions public.

If you read yourself or any supporter of open governance into that statement that's telling. Why would you think I'm talking about you? Who did you think I was referring to?

I did not think you were talking about me. I have not posted in that thread. Please look it over Spanky. There is a lot of important information to be gathered there.

[Ray Moscow]

So you have no concern for a potential abuse of power despite the fact that the staff forum is currently structured almost the same way that the IIDB staff forum was structured, yet you are concerned that people from RnR are going to come here and force it to become a replica. I see. :dunno:



No, I have little concern about abuse of mod or admin power here. Those who I know on the staff seem to be competent and acting in line with what I understand to be the forum's purpose. I would not participate here if I thought otherwise.

If that changed greatly in the future for some reason, I would just leave. Like I said, the internet is a big place. I don't expect every forum to cater to my wish to control it.

I do think disciplinary actions against trolls and other disruptive posters ought to be transparent, though.

[Reverend Spanky]

Allowing a troll to troll the discussion of what to do about the troll is feeding it. Allowing the troll to create more trolling threads about the thread about trolling is feeding it. Haven't you seen trolls in action? They're attention whores of the first order.

I disagree with you WRT the firmness of TR moderation policies. This is a new board and a lot of changes and adjustments are being made daily. Nothing has been set in stone, and perhaps nothing ever will be.


There are enough mods on staff that I think a policy of vicious and quick removal of trolling material to the appropriate holding areas would be effective.


Perhaps so, but nothing is perfect. Placing some of your trust in a good system and some of your trust in good people is IMO a sensible compromise.


This is reasonable. There is a range of opinion about how open a good system needs to be.


Please look over the thread I linked and the other discussion which have taken place in recent days. You are painting with a very broad brush here and smearing people who actually agree with you on making staff discussions public.

I read it originally. I thought there was good sentiment expressed there. It seems to have fallen by the wayside, and there are people in positions of power on this board who fundamentally disagree with it.

I didn't play much with the IIDB thing. That forum had gotten stale, in my opinion, and I'd left well before. I don't hold the same grudges, but I am also willing to recognize patterns of behavior among people who were there and are now here. You don't seem to be exhibiting those patterns of behavior. Lots of people don't. Some people do. I will continue to speak to them about it.

[nygreenguy]

All this makes sense to me, too. This "no private forum" idea will just destroy any effective board management, which I suppose is the main purpose behind it.

Anyway, if one thinks forum management are really such incompetent shitheads that they cannot be trusted to carry on forum business among themselves without continuous scrutiny from everyone else, then why does one participate on the forum?

The internet is a big place. Fly, be free. Start your own forum, even.

QFT. What ive been saying all along.

[Arctish]

At the moment the staff is trying to determine the absolute minimum of privacy needed for this board to function smoothly so that TR policy can be set to avoid exceeding it. That is the reason the ombudsman position is being created - it is a voluntary check on this "power" you seem to think we are hoarding. It is why several moderators have told Rathpig he'd be more than welcome in that position. Rathpig can be trusted to fight against even a smidgen of excess in moderator or admin power. It also the reason PD's request to make public any discussion of his posts is being given serious consideration.

Please correct me if I'm wrong - the way I understand the current ombudsman proposal, the ombudsman would only be granted access to materials pertaining to a specific situation only when the member involved requests it. Do you think it might be better to give an ombudsman read-only access to the entire staff forum so that he or she has an idea of what's going on? My concern is that if the ombudsman only has access to cases where someone complains that other actions could possibly go unnoticed.



There has been a lot of discussion about that very point. As I understand it, the problem with a permanent ombudsman is that he or she becomes a de facto member of the staff. In order to preserve the integrity of the ombudsman position (and thereby hopefully the trust of the members in the ombudsman) it is necessary to keep a fairly large degree of separation in place. The ombudsman is not a part of the staff. He or she will scrutinize the activity in the Staff forum if there is suspicion of questionable goings-on there.

The current proposal being discussed includes a discussion of when and how an ombudsman's access can be expanded to insure he or she has access to all pertinent information. That is a complicated question and I expect it will be a while before the details are worked out.

[meepmeep]

No, I have little concern about abuse of mod or admin power here. Those who I know on the staff seem to be competent and acting in line with what I understand to be the forum's purpose. I would not participate here if I thought otherwise.

I don't think abuse of power necessarily implies incompetence or anything of the sort. Sometimes it just happens, regardless of people's intentions. Sometimes people make mistakes. Sometimes people form habits without realizing what they're doing because they lose perspective on a situation. Being competent doesn't make a person any less human or biased, which is why abuse of power should always a concern when content is moderated.

ETA: Thanks for the information, Arctish.

[Wordy]

having posted there under the agreement that it would be confidential, and then having that trust violated is another.
D_D_D I agree.

One way to resolve this is to go back and edit all posts so they live up to knowing they will be read after six month. Much work but better than to hide them.

A compromise would be to let somebody that both AdminMods and the curious trust read it and tell if it was ok or had things needed to act upon.

[dug_down_deep]

having posted there under the agreement that it would be confidential, and then having that trust violated is another.
D_D_D I agree.

One way to resolve this is to go back and edit all posts so they live up to knowing they will be read after six month. Much work but better than to hide them.
If the option is to completely remove their posts from the thread, then I think that's fine. I personally don't care if anyone reads my posts there, except for where I mentioned personal details on my real life identity, because I know that there are whackos on the internets.

BTW, anyone who proceeds from the assumption that there has been an abuse of power here is, IMO, utterly wrong. I support openness generally, not really because I think there will be an abuse of power, but because I think that many people are suffering from IIDB PTSD, and a lack of information will lead them to create imaginary demons. And that will disrupt the forum, which is counter to what I want to see happen. I want the forum to be a nice place to discuss stuff.

[deadman_932]

Umop (Dean) has set forward valid arguments against disclosing internal communications. I understand his concerns and share some of them.

However, I also feel that this situation calls for extraordinary efforts to deal with the grievances of the past -- and the prevention of such ills in the future.

I'd like to address that first, then move into alternative perspectives on the issues set forth. I'll start from first principles here.

There is no reason to argue for an "open books" policy regarding communications except that people -- ordinary users and staff -- have been burned in the past precisely by clandestine hoarding and witholding of information. No need to elaborate here: The complaints about lack of transparency in the past were complaints voiced by many already present.

Since this IS true, the question then becomes how to deal with it. There are two primary routes that can be discerned; (a) Trust that those in power will be willing to prevent the seizure of power by a smaller, concerted group. (b) establish checks and balances, fail-safes that ensure that such seizure is made more difficult. There is inevitably, then, a third broad category: (c) some combination of the above.

The possibilities are endless. The problems that can arise are then myriad. Dean has nicely outlined some of those problems in his post, so it's possible to examine them. I will do so in a way that I hope will be acceptable to all, particularly Dean, since I have no desire to offend. Dean's concerns are in quote boxes.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) The whole point of a private staff forum is that the staff can be relaxed about discussing things openly there with the expectation that things won't be picked over and quibbled about by people with an axe to grind. Making things public after a time period has expired just completely negates the point of that because people will be quibbling about old grievances while we are supposed to be sorting out current events.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This can be broken down into two parts:
(a) Staff should have a work atmosphere conducive to open discussion without fear of reprisal and castigation by their peers or the members at large.
(b) Staff time can or will be consumed by such castigation.

Without insult to anyone, I'm curious why a staff should be relaxed about what they discuss amongst themselves? Why not choose another adjective like "professional?" Professional denotes and connotes a whole different mindset, one that may be preferable. Moderators and Administrators carry power over the posters they are meant to represent, protect, if needed, eliminate from this "republic," and with that comes responsibility. If moderators and admins were professional...sticking to the relevant points, not engaging in irrelevancies and character-assassination and other broadsides, then such concerns about people quibbling excessively over words is vastly mitigated.

Others (not Dean) have made the claim that openness could destroy effective moderation, but I fail to see how. Ideally, one moderates by identifying, examining and presenting the facts. Facts that can and should speak for themselves, without excessive bias injected by how any particular reviewer spins the data.

Dispassionate evaluation of the evidence is a hallmark in how things are done professionally, in all arenas where responsibility is a key, I should think...from ordinary workplaces to judicial and legislative governance, to science. This is not to say that one cannot be enthusiastic about work, just that bias should not find its way into day-to-day interactions. Professionalism, in short.

Now, so far as I know, this "open-book" policy hasn't been tried anywhere on the net, and for the life of me, I cannot see how (for instance) my decision-making *can* be curtailed by having my reasoning made public...in ANYTHING. In science and elsewhere, we talk about the elimination of bias in the realm of decision-making and I view this as a good thing. Words are powerful. Words are persuaders and the proper selection of such can determine the fate of relevant matters.

Words used privately can be tempered professionally so that they are capable of being viewed by anyone.

I'd suggest here that people take a look at neutral, "non-accusatory" speech used by various professionals...it can be learned and it is preferable. It can be taught to newcomers by establishing a pattern of use and requiring that new mods/admins read examples of such.

I would suggest that speculation about the motives, means, methods of problem posters are only valid when discussing transgressions of forum rules that are less than clear-cut. Example: I've gotten to be a professional at the double-entendre insult that cannot easily be acted upon by moderators, therefore one has to establish a pattern of my use of such and then try to nail me. But nailing me can be done. And it can be done without irrelevant speculation or insult that one is then reluctant to share publicly.

Certainly there will be those who seek to make hay of small transgressions... that's to be expected and such things can serve to heighten professionalism if taken positively, rather than as some assault that would lay waste to people's ability to govern.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
2) If people know that what they say somewhere will be read by the people they are talking about, they'll just sanitize that discussion and the real discussion will happen via PM or email or chat or whatever other really private medium is available. It's what happened at IIDB when we were discussing another staff member, and it is what happens at RnR where there is no private staff forum. Those asking for all discussions to be made public aren't living in the real world unless they want the PM system to be disabled and they want any other communication between people banned. It's just not practical to want to stop people talking amongst themselves before making public statements - and if you accept that it is going to happen anyway then there is no point making things more awkward for the staff, since that way it will be more difficult to recruit and keep staff.--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here the argument appears to be that one should keep things secret from the general public -- because otherwise people will keep things secret from the general public. You may view this as an unfair spin on your words, Dean and I recognize this merits further examination.

Again, however, I would suggest simply setting into effect a pattern of professionalism -- in which words used... are words that one is unafraid to share.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

3) From a practical point of view, going through a year's worth of threads and checking for anything that needs to be snipped out - and discussing what needs to be snipped out (which discussion in itself will have to be snipped out the following year) is a huge waste of time and effort for very little gain.
That's the single most agreed-upon point, I would wager. It would be a lot of work -- BUT the gain would be relative trust.

I don't think that's very little.

Cheers to all, and I hope this helps a little. I don't feel great about how I have treated some people here in the past and I look forward to building something worth having.

JB: The "name" Etaoin Shrdlu comes from the arrangement of keys on the early linotype (typesetting) machines used for printing written works. http://pages.prodigy.net/jabeckpearce/poor_town/tales/etaoinshrdlu.htm

[Pavlov's Dog]

There is no reason to argue for an "open books" policy regarding communications except that people -- ordinary users and staff -- have been burned in the past precisely by clandestine hoarding and witholding of information. No need to elaborate here: The complaints about lack of transparency in the past were complaints voiced by many already present.

If by the past, you are including yesterday, then we were burned in the past. But I consider that part of the present. The exact same staff that is now fighting transparency where the ones who fucked up and got busted yesterday.

[Wordy]

I like what deadman_932 suggests here in post 49 right above PD's post.

PD I agree. We need transperancy so thanks for talking about it calmly.

[dancer_rnb]

[
The internet is a big place. Fly, be free. Start your own forum, even.

Go along or get along, yes. You didn't have to make the implication explicit.

Kind of like newcomers are always told at RnR.
Do you have any criticism of that, Reverand Spanky?

(Maybe this should be split to another thread.)

[dug_down_deep]

If by the past, you are including yesterday, then we were burned in the past. But I consider that part of the present. The exact same staff that is now fighting transparency where the ones who fucked up and got busted yesterday.
Who's been burned, and by what action? You're claiming there's been a fuck-up, but I don't see it. Can you provide some sort of argument about why any of the actions taken were wrong?

[dancer_rnb]

Along with more openess, I think there should be less benefit of a doubt,
and less tolerance given to people who have known trolling behavior on other boards.

[Reverend Spanky]

[
The internet is a big place. Fly, be free. Start your own forum, even.

Go along or get along, yes. You didn't have to make the implication explicit.

Kind of like newcomers are always told at RnR.
Do you have any criticism of that, Reverand Spanky?

(Maybe this should be split to another thread.)

I thought you were trying not to be RnR?

[Reverend Spanky]

Along with more openess, I think there should be less benefit of a doubt,
and less tolerance given to people who have known trolling behavior on other boards.

Yes, that would certainly be un-IIDBlike, to follow people around to other forums and smack the banbutton asap on this one because you don't like what's going on somewhere else.

[Pavlov's Dog]

Who's been burned, and by what action? You're claiming there's been a fuck-up, but I don't see it. Can you provide some sort of argument about why any of the actions taken were wrong?

Have you been paying attention? Gossiping about users in the private forum is a fuck up. At least one of the staff has already apologized, and her offense was probably with the best of intentions, and actually may have been relevant. RexT's comment was baseless, and totally irrelevant gossip.

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

My thoughts on this are based on a pragmatic stance rather than going with what my idealistic one would be...

1) The whole point of a private staff forum is that the staff can be relaxed about discussing things openly there with the expectation that things won't be picked over and quibbled about by people with an axe to grind. Making things public after a time period has expired just completely negates the point of that because people will be quibbling about old grievances while we are supposed to be sorting out current events.

2) If people know that what they say somewhere will be read by the people they are talking about, they'll just sanitize that discussion and the real discussion will happen via PM or email or chat or whatever other really private medium is available. It's what happened at IIDB when we were discussing another staff member, and it is what happens at RnR where there is no private staff forum. Those asking for all discussions to be made public aren't living in the real world unless they want the PM system to be disabled and they want any other communication between people banned. It's just not practical to want to stop people talking amongst themselves before making public statements - and if you accept that it is going to happen anyway then there is no point making things more awkward for the staff, since that way it will be more difficult to recruit and keep staff.

3) From a practical point of view, going through a year's worth of threads and checking for anything that needs to be snipped out - and discussing what needs to be snipped out (which discussion in itself will have to be snipped out the following year) is a huge waste of time and effort for very little gain.

I have to say that I completely concur with Dean here. For pragmatic reasons, I'm quite happy to let the mods/admins have their private forum to do their jobs. There are also concerns about privacy and confidentiality. When I was a mod in the MCR, there have been threads I know of that bring up private messages and deeply personal issues such as suicide or depression.

I think many people here are focusing too much on forum structure, assuming that there are no free agents. Some level of trust is needed for the people involved which I think attracted many people to TR. Based on my experience with people like Dean, Octavia and RBH, I trust them to show integrity, fairness and sound judgment over how they run a forum.

Dean's point #2 is critical which is why an open staff forum won't work. Do people want the mods/admins to reveal all of their forum relevant PMs, email correspodence and chat logs too?

[deadman_932]

Truthfully, KWSN, I don't have an issue with any of the people you mentioned. My concern is directed at the possibility that those people may not hold their positions two years from now, due to whatever circumstances.

It would seem to be prudent to build safeguards into the structure. As someone mentioned in another thread, the issue is not in trusting the people you know, it's really about trusting an institution's ability to handle stress. People's complaints at IIDB were centered around this whole notion.

[Jobar]

^Oh, that sounds like a fun job. :D

I support the idea, though - although in fairness to those who posted in the expectation of privacy before April 3, I'd support the grandfathering out idea.

Putting editable details in colour is a good idea - especially if admins edit them out as we go (say, a week or two after the thread is done with) so the job at the end isn't so fucking massive.

I could live with holding these initial couple of months of the SF as private, but I would prefer it if all the ones involved would go back and edit out anything they were concerned about, and publish the rest. The history of the board would be much more complete, and your commitment to openness would be made clearer. But it's true that you on staff that posted with the expectation of privacy should have that right, if you choose to exercise it.

Idea- ask Matt if there's an add-on to vB that you could use to make removal of private info automatic; something as easy to use as the quote or color function, that would do a delete after 5 or 6 months. It would seem that there'd be a database function to do that easily. (If there is, then you should also find a way to keep one unexpurgated copy of the database, so that if you needed that private info for some future administrative action it would still be available.)

[Pavlov's Dog]

Truthfully, KWSN, I don't have an issue with any of the people you mentioned. My concern is directed at the possibility that those people may not hold their positions two years from now, due to whatever circumstances.

This is a good point. Do they want a republic of laws, or a republic of men. A republic of persons sounds good when you like and trust all the people.

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

To Jobar, what would be your response to Dean's point? --

2) If people know that what they say somewhere will be read by the people they are talking about, they'll just sanitize that discussion and the real discussion will happen via PM or email or chat or whatever other really private medium is available. It's what happened at IIDB when we were discussing another staff member, and it is what happens at RnR where there is no private staff forum. Those asking for all discussions to be made public aren't living in the real world unless they want the PM system to be disabled and they want any other communication between people banned. It's just not practical to want to stop people talking amongst themselves before making public statements - and if you accept that it is going to happen anyway then there is no point making things more awkward for the staff, since that way it will be more difficult to recruit and keep staff.

[meepmeep]

Dean's point #2 is critical which is why an open staff forum won't work. Do people want the mods/admins to reveal all of their forum relevant PMs, email correspodence and chat logs too?

This is my response to that point:
Here's a mediocre hypothetical: say someone who likes to mess around and push people's buttons reports a legitimate problem. Instead of directly addressing it right away in public, someone on staff starts a round-robin PM discussion of the issue and the poster. If there's no public response to the report, people will notice. If the staff suddenly come out with a consensus decision with no discussion having taken place in public, people will notice. Even if staff resort to using PMs (which will happen), staff will still be held publicly accountable for responding to legitimate complaints.

If there's no discussion taking place but actions being taken, it'll be pretty obvious. No one can stop anyone from complaining about anything through private messages, IM, email, telephone, fax, or smoke signals, but that doesn't negate the potential benefits of having staff discussions viewable by all members since they will still have an idea of what is or isn't going on.

[Worldtraveller]

Truthfully, KWSN, I don't have an issue with any of the people you mentioned. My concern is directed at the possibility that those people may not hold their positions two years from now, due to whatever circumstances.
This is a good point.

As for private info, I'm not sure if that is an easy hack or not. It would be convenient if there was a tag that would either mark the thread as unmovable (less optimal) or auto deleted privately flagged info (the better, but probably technically more difficult, option).

It would also be nice to have it automated such that it moves a fixed time (3 months, 6 months??) after the last post is made. I have no idea if those would be technically feasible.

Does the search function allow a cutoff for only 'posts older than 3 months' for example? It works for newer, so it seems possible that one could reverse that check. Still have to deal with any potentially private info, though.

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

Truthfully, KWSN, I don't have an issue with any of the people you mentioned. My concern is directed at the possibility that those people may not hold their positions two years from now, due to whatever circumstances.

It would seem to be prudent to build safeguards into the structure. As someone mentioned in another thread, the issue is not in trusting the people you know, it's really about trusting an institution's ability to handle stress. People's complaints at IIDB were centered around this whole notion.

Again, I think issues of trust for the leadership involved become crucial as a safeguard. I trust people like RBH, Octavia and Dean to select new admins who have a reputation for integrity, good judgment, as well as confidencce and respect from the TR community. Another thing to consider is that TR does not have a significant concentration of power like the IIDB. While ToM had the power to overrule any admin and act arbitrarily and unilaterally, the TR admins have to work with a consensus.

Overall, I don't see how open staff forums will serve as a good institutional safeguard, especially if the real staff discussion will just move behind the scenes via PMs, emails or chat.

[Reverend Spanky]

This is a good point.

As for private info, I'm not sure if that is an easy hack or not. It would be convenient if there was a tag that would either mark the thread as unmovable (less optimal) or auto deleted privately flagged info (the better, but probably technically more difficult, option).

It would also be nice to have it automated such that it moves a fixed time (3 months, 6 months??) after the last post is made. I have no idea if those would be technically feasible.

Does the search function allow a cutoff for only 'posts older than 3 months' for example? It works for newer, so it seems possible that one could reverse that check. Still have to deal with any potentially private info, though.

Easy fix: another private forum for discussions which include private info. Heh.

Although, at that point, I fail to see why the mod forum couldn't be read-only without all the overhead of a six-month cooldown.

[Pavlov's Dog]

Again, I think issues of trust for the leadership involved become crucial as a safeguard. I trust people like RBH, Octavia and Dean to select new admins who have a reputation for integrity, good judgment, as well as confidencce and respect from the TR community.

Those people trusted in ToM and the BoD for a long time. Don't be so sure that people don't make mistakes with their trust.

[meepmeep]

Again, I think issues of trust for the leadership involved become crucial as a safeguard. I trust people like RBH, Octavia and Dean to select new admins who have a reputation for integrity, good judgment, as well as confidencce and respect from the TR community. Another thing to consider is that TR does not have a significant concentration of power like the IIDB. While ToM had the power to overrule any admin and act arbitrarily and unilaterally, the TR admins have to work with a consensus.

It's not about trusting the people in charge. Even if they have integrity, good judgment, and a dozen other wonderful qualities, they're still human beings.

It's not about incompetence. It's about accountability and how much effectiveness you're willing to sacrifice in exchange for it.

This is how I see it: everyone is biased. It's a part of being human. If you're going to have a forum where you moderate the content of people's posts, you have to be absolutely honest with yourself and admit your own personal biases and your limitations in objectively resolving problems involving other people. The consensus model for deciding mod/admin issues here is a good way of dealing with that, but only if there are checks that prevent the formation of group bias.

Overall, I don't see how open staff forums will serve as a good institutional safeguard, especially if the real staff discussion will just move behind the scenes via PMs, emails or chat.

Scroll up. I already addressed this, and so have other people in other threads.

[dancer_rnb]

Go along or get along, yes. You didn't have to make the implication explicit.

Kind of like newcomers are always told at RnR.
Do you have any criticism of that, Reverand Spanky?

(Maybe this should be split to another thread.)

I thought you were trying not to be RnR?

I actually thought the idea that newcomers shouldn't immediately try to change the place from the
way it was set up to be was a fair stance to take. I pretty much followed it.

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

This is my response to that point:
Here's a mediocre hypothetical: say someone who likes to mess around and push people's buttons reports a legitimate problem. Instead of directly addressing it right away in public, someone on staff starts a round-robin PM discussion of the issue and the poster. If there's no public response to the report, people will notice. If the staff suddenly come out with a consensus decision with no discussion having taken place in public, people will notice. Even if staff resort to using PMs (which will happen), staff will still be held publicly accountable for responding to legitimate complaints.

If there's no discussion taking place but actions being taken, it'll be pretty obvious. No one can stop anyone from complaining about anything through private messages, IM, email, telephone, fax, or smoke signals, but that doesn't negate the potential benefits of having staff discussions viewable by all members since they will still have an idea of what is or isn't going on.

I see your point. But then again, you'll just get a sanitized version for a public response while the real discussion occurs elsewhere. If you try accountability structures like this, there's always a means to get around it. And as Dean alluded, it would also create more tediousness and burnout for the staff. Again, I think it's the integrity of people that matter when running a forum, not structure. I agree in principle with a balance of accountability and pragmatism to run a forum with a "republic" ethoes. But an open staff forum will likely damage the balance, undermining the practicality of managing the place.

[Reverend Spanky]

I actually thought the idea that newcomers shouldn't immediately try to change the place from the
way it was set up to be was a fair stance to take. I pretty much followed it.

Who you calling newcomer, kemosabe? Is the difference between 3/6 and 3/8 where that distinction gets drawn?

[dug_down_deep]

Who's been burned, and by what action? You're claiming there's been a fuck-up, but I don't see it. Can you provide some sort of argument about why any of the actions taken were wrong?

Have you been paying attention?
I'm paying as much attention as I can without screwing up my RL. Sorry if that's not enough, but I don't think I'm missing any relevant facts. My point is not that gossiping didn't happen. It certainly did. I'm asking what the problem with gossiping is.

Gossiping about users in the private forum is a fuck up. At least one of the staff has already apologized, and her offense was probably with the best of intentions, and actually may have been relevant. RexT's comment was baseless, and totally irrelevant gossip.
I don't know who apologized or for what reason, but I don't see the need. Gossip is not automatically a fuck-up. Why do you think it is?

[Pavlov's Dog]

Who's been burned, and by what action? You're claiming there's been a fuck-up, but I don't see it. Can you provide some sort of argument about why any of the actions taken were wrong?

Have you been paying attention?
I'm paying as much attention as I can without screwing up my RL. Sorry if that's not enough, but I don't think I'm missing any relevant facts. My point is not that gossiping didn't happen. It certainly did. I'm asking what the problem with gossiping is.

Gossiping about users in the private forum is a fuck up. At least one of the staff has already apologized, and her offense was probably with the best of intentions, and actually may have been relevant. RexT's comment was baseless, and totally irrelevant gossip.
I don't know who apologized or for what reason, but I don't see the need. Gossip is not automatically a fuck-up. Why do you think it is?

Because the staff forums are not supposed to be a clubhouse where the elite get to gossip about the other members. Are you saying that using the staff forum so a few specials can gossip about members is okay? If that is your position, then you are right. It was not a fuck up.

[dancer_rnb]

I actually thought the idea that newcomers shouldn't immediately try to change the place from the
way it was set up to be was a fair stance to take. I pretty much followed it.

Who you calling newcomer, kemosabe? Is the difference between 3/6 and 3/8 where that distinction gets drawn?

We are both newcomers. I never claimed otherwise. Try again.

[Pavlov's Dog]

I actually thought the idea that newcomers shouldn't immediately try to change the place from the
way it was set up to be was a fair stance to take. I pretty much followed it.

Who you calling newcomer, kemosabe? Is the difference between 3/6 and 3/8 where that distinction gets drawn?

We are both newcomers. I never claimed otherwise. Try again.

You were both here within the first two days. Who isn't a newcomer? Matt?

[dancer_rnb]

Who you calling newcomer, kemosabe? Is the difference between 3/6 and 3/8 where that distinction gets drawn?

We are both newcomers. I never claimed otherwise. Try again.

You were both here within the first two days. Who isn't a newcomer? Matt?

The people who set this place up, perhaps?

Maybe they are not doing as good a job as they could,
but I would hate to being setting this place up and dealing with the people
they have to deal with.

[Reverend Spanky]

Who you calling newcomer, kemosabe? Is the difference between 3/6 and 3/8 where that distinction gets drawn?

We are both newcomers. I never claimed otherwise. Try again.

You were both here within the first two days. Who isn't a newcomer? Matt?

I think the statement was confused. Instead of newcomer, Dancer meant to write "Somebody I don't disagree with."

[Reverend Spanky]

The people who set this place up, perhaps?

Maybe they are not doing as good a job as they could,
but I would hate to being setting this place up and dealing with the people
they have to deal with.

Perhaps you could provide a Founder's List of people who are qualified to comment on policy proposals?

[dancer_rnb]

We are both newcomers. I never claimed otherwise. Try again.

You were both here within the first two days. Who isn't a newcomer? Matt?

I think the statement was confused. Instead of newcomer, Dancer meant to write "Somebody I don't disagree with."

Actually what I meant to say was "people who aren't trolling RNR cool kids"

[Reverend Spanky]

Actually what I meant to say was "people who aren't trolling RNR cool kids"

I wasn't going to say it outright, but I'm glad you will. Chew this over:

That statement has absolutely no impact on me. This board can be open, or a haven for disgruntled ex-whatevers, and it will not make any difference.

Does saying that make any impact on you? Does it say anything about you? Is it what you're trying to promote?

[dug_down_deep]

Because the staff forums are not supposed to be a clubhouse where the elite get to gossip about the other members. Are you saying that using the staff forum so a few specials can gossip about members is okay? If that is your position, then you are right. It was not a fuck up.
Wow. You build an impressive strawman. Um, no. I'm not saying any of that.

What I'm saying is that just because a conversation is confidential doesn't mean you have to censor yourself. I am starting to believe that there's a possible tension created by a private forum, but that's a long ways from deciding prima facie that there's something wrong with gossiping. Maybe you could actually convince me that there is.

With words, rather than sarcastically delivered fallacies.

[Worldtraveller]

This is a good point.

As for private info, I'm not sure if that is an easy hack or not. It would be convenient if there was a tag that would either mark the thread as unmovable (less optimal) or auto deleted privately flagged info (the better, but probably technically more difficult, option).

It would also be nice to have it automated such that it moves a fixed time (3 months, 6 months??) after the last post is made. I have no idea if those would be technically feasible.

Does the search function allow a cutoff for only 'posts older than 3 months' for example? It works for newer, so it seems possible that one could reverse that check. Still have to deal with any potentially private info, though.

Easy fix: another private forum for discussions which include private info. Heh.

Although, at that point, I fail to see why the mod forum couldn't be read-only without all the overhead of a six-month cooldown.

Although, at that point, I fail to see why the mod forum couldn't be read-only without all the overhead of a six-month cooldown.
I think the reasoning behind it, and I concur at this point (I'm still trying to think through all the ramifications of these various proposals, which is why these discussins can be very productive), is that if the staff forum was read only, the posters being discussed would just copy/paste the discussion into public and we might as well have it be a public read/write forum.

I think the proposed model of opening up the staff forum after a set period should address the issue from the member and the staff perspectives. You have the delay, so that the staff doesn't feel like things are being nitpicked over while it's occuring, reducing the second guessing. While at the same time, members can review the decision process, and by extension, the decisions if they still feel it's necessary at a later time. I think a less than a year is better. Real time is bad, but a year is too long. I'd like to see it automated at about 3 months.

I'm still worrying this idea around though, so I may change my mind.

[mac_philo]

The "sanitation" and "going to PM" arguments, and the worries about just deleting threads, make this proposal far inferior to just having the staff forum world-readable in real time.

With a world-readable staff forum, if the public deliberation is scant, or inadequate to justify the policy outcome, you have good evidence that the staff is skirting transparency and colluding via PM, and you can start recall procedures.

So I'd much rather have the forum simply world-readable, because then if the staff tries to game the system, we have a reliable method for detecting such.

[Pavlov's Dog]

Wow. You build an impressive strawman. Um, no. I'm not saying any of that.

You could have fooled me.

What I'm saying is that just because a conversation is confidential doesn't mean you have to censor yourself.

You shouldn't throw out accusations when people are unable to defend themselves. That is fundamental fairness. If you can't see that then you probably should not be a mod here. Allowing a forum where only staff can gossip and insult users in private, but not allowing users in public to insult is also unfair. If you can't see that this forms two distinct classes of posters and is unfair, then you probably should not be a mod here.

[mac_philo]

I think the reasoning behind it, and I concur at this point (I'm still trying to think through all the ramifications of these various proposals, which is why these discussins can be very productive), is that if the staff forum was read only, the posters being discussed would just copy/paste the discussion into public and we might as well have it be a public read/write forum.

That doesn't follow. How is this argument different from a legislature saying:

"If the media and bloggers are just going to present and discuss our deliberations in public, we might as well allow the public to participate in our deliberations."

If certain members on staff feel the compulsion to go around responding to every last question and objection, that's purely a personal matter. If that's a problem for them then perhaps they aren't good candidates to be on staff. The point of making it world-readable has to do with transparency, not with getting on-demand responses from the staff. Staff is under no general obligation to reply to or even read the criticism---though if the community finds that a staff member is wholly disconnected from genuine, compelling criticism, it's recall time.

[dug_down_deep]

You shouldn't throw out accusations when people are unable to defend themselves.
I thought we were talking about gossip. Now we're talking about accusations. Those are different things. Do you want to talk about accusations, or do you want to talk about gossip? Because the Mason thing is about gossip, not accusations.

[Pavlov's Dog]

Those are different things. Do you want to talk about accusations, or do you want to talk about gossip? Because the Mason thing is about gossip, not accusations.

No they are not. Accusations can be, and are very often part of gossip. Mason was accused of having a mental illness. Is this seriously the best you got? Come on.

[Preno]

I have to say that I completely concur with Dean here. For pragmatic reasons, I'm quite happy to let the mods/admins have their private forum to do their jobs. There are also concerns about privacy and confidentiality. When I was a mod in the MCR, there have been threads I know of that bring up private messages and deeply personal issues such as suicide or depression.These clearly do not form the bulk of the private discussions, and I have nothing against the mods discussing genuinely private matters in private.
Overall, I don't see how open staff forums will serve as a good institutional safeguard, especially if the real staff discussion will just move behind the scenes via PMs, emails or chat.Why would that be the case, seriously? It's not the case on RnR. Sure, if the habits are so deeply ingrained - and I'm sure in some admins/mods they are - maybe, but then again, isn't the point of these proposals to encourage "healthy" modding habits?

To be honest, I don't really care about the formalistic issues much. The point is, the substantial discussion about policy or bans or suspensions should be made in public, unless there actually is some privacy issue, which there certainly need not be. I encourage mods and admins to do so, regardless of whether there is or isn't a secret forum. The existence or non-existence of a private forum would be irrelevant in and of itself, it is what the forum is used for, but of course, its existence does tempt some of the members to use it instead of discussing stuff publicly.
It's not about trusting the people in charge. Even if they have integrity, good judgment, and a dozen other wonderful qualities, they're still human beings.This.

[Loren Pechtel]

^Oh, that sounds like a fun job. :D

I support the idea, though - although in fairness to those who posted in the expectation of privacy before April 3, I'd support the grandfathering out idea.

Putting editable details in colour is a good idea - especially if admins edit them out as we go (say, a week or two after the thread is done with) so the job at the end isn't so fucking massive.

It's still a lot of editing and things will certainly be missed.

How about a different approach if there's anyone on staff competent to do it:

A new tag . You can't see the stuff in it unless you are a mod or admin. It would apply to all forums--it would have other uses besides. I know over at IIDB I sometimes left notes in a user's post telling other mods that the requested action was done. (Things like "please add <x> to the poll" etc.)

[deadman_932]

In regards to the issue of "wasting staff time" if logs were to be viewable (and with due respect for all involved) ...I still haven't heard a detailed argument for this. As a couple of people here have noted, this argument seems to ring hollow if, as suggested earlier, the focus of the staff is on professionalistic conduct.

No solution is perfect, BUT THIS ISSUE WAS AT THE CORE OF PEOPLE DEFECTING FROM IIDB

Why isn't that important enough to be daring and say "yes, there will be criticism and shit-stirring following release, but not all criticism has to be responded to" ?

I have NO real idea of how much time and effort would be involved in redacting and releasing logs. I'm sure much of it could be "automated," but who knows what the response will bring?

I have never said it wouldn't be work, but the thing is that a primary argument being made against it is that it WILL bring *excessively* distracting, time-consuming work...and I don't KNOW this is so, and frankly, neither does anyone else -- especially if a practice of professionalism is set in place NOW.

In my opinion, the positives of
(1) allaying user fears/paranoia, of
(2) ensuring less likelihood of coalition-formation and usurpation (NOT by any current staff , but for the future) and
(3)enforcing professionalism....

those positives outweigh this ...thus-far MYTHICAL, undemonstrated notion that it will bring things to a negative conclusion.

Edit: I should add that I'm not "wedded" to this notion of disclosure, but I am saying that I genuinely see little weight...substance... in arguments against it at present.

This should not be taken as offense by anyone, just as I won't take offense by responses.

[Arctish]

Those are different things. Do you want to talk about accusations, or do you want to talk about gossip? Because the Mason thing is about gossip, not accusations.

No they are not. Accusations can be, and are very often part of gossip. Mason was accused of having a mental illness. Is this seriously the best you got? Come on.

We need to nail down a few things for this conversation to progress any further. What is gossip, is it ever appropriate in a staff forum discussion, and when (if ever) does it become an accusation?

I can think of plenty of times when a person's RL situation affected their posts back at that Other place. A tense family situation, deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan, divorce, a death in the family, etc. have all at some time or other caused people to submit scorching hot replies to other members. Some members could be counted on to fly off the handle from time to time because of tragic personal history. IMO consideration of these types of special circumstances was essential to fair moderation.

A couple of mods saying an admitted troll has a tough family situation is not out of line when considering what to do with him. Speculating on his mental health is borderline, but not automatically out of line, either. I remember one very frustrating member at the Other place who drove a lot of the GRD regulars to flames by his behavior. He would start long winded threads, abandon them in a day or so, and then start the very same thread again a week later. Accusations of trolling were not long in coming. When the mods and admins looked into the situation they did consider the guy's personal situation and it was a good thing, too. It turned out the guy had Alzheimer's disease. He was really smart and really well educated but he could not remember what he had discussed with people a week ago.

How in hell can mods and admins be fair to people under stress or affected by genuine mental problems unless they can discuss whether or not they think someone is under stress or has mental problems? You may not like it, PD, but IMO it is a necessary component of fair moderation.

I agree with you that gossip for the sake of gossip is inappropriate in the Staff forum. But that is not what happens here.

[David B]

Those are different things. Do you want to talk about accusations, or do you want to talk about gossip? Because the Mason thing is about gossip, not accusations.

No they are not. Accusations can be, and are very often part of gossip. Mason was accused of having a mental illness. Is this seriously the best you got? Come on.

Why do consistently misquote, having been corrected several times?

My working view is that to do so is deceptive to the point of dishonesty, but I await your explanation with interest.

Someone suggested that Mason had mental issues, as is, in my view regrettably, public knowledge.

Not the same thing at all!

Incidentally, I'd prefer any suggestion of people having either a mental illness, or mental issues, be made in private rather than in public, as opposed to your, in my opinion completely unjustified, slur against Lao Tzu in another thread.

David B

[Pavlov's Dog]

Incidentally, I'd prefer any suggestion of people having either a mental illness, or mental issues, be made in private rather than in public, as opposed to your, in my opinion completely unjustified, slur against Lao Tzu in another thread.

David B

I'd appreciate a lot of things.

[Pavlov's Dog]

A couple of mods saying an admitted troll has a tough family situation is not out of line when considering what to do with him. Speculating on his mental health is borderline, but not automatically out of line, either.

It wasn't legitimate speculation. It was a back handed comment, and was not discussed in any detail or made with any sort of reasoning. It was a gossip. What about me being called an asshole and a moron in my thread? I suppose that is just because they are trying to figure out my home situation to make a better decision.

[David B]

Incidentally, I'd prefer any suggestion of people having either a mental illness, or mental issues, be made in private rather than in public, as opposed to your, in my opinion completely unjustified, slur against Lao Tzu in another thread.

David B

I'd appreciate a lot of things.

Evasion noted.

David B (does not have mod hat on here, as evading points, while IMV undesirable, cannot be legislated against)

[Christina]

PD, I can't call it gossip because it isn't like I knew any great secret stuff about you. I was expressing my opinion. The only discussion about it was a few people that knew you telling me that I was wrong. I'll apologize but I want to be sincere about it. I can't apologize for thinking it, but I shouldn't have called you a name like that where you aren't there to defend yourself. If I had to do it again I would have stated it more politely that I think that you shoot yourself in the foot a lot with your style like I said out here.

[Pavlov's Dog]

PD, I can't call it gossip because it isn't like I knew any great secret stuff about you. I was expressing my opinion. The only discussion about it was a few people that knew you telling me that I was wrong. I'll apologize but I want to be sincere about it. I can't apologize for thinking it, but I shouldn't have called you a name like that where you aren't there to defend yourself. If I had to do it again I would have stated it more politely that I think that you shoot yourself in the foot a lot with your style like I said out here.

I didn't say that your post was gossip. I haven't seen the entire thread or your post for that matter. It was definitely and insult, and I sure would get a lot of shit if I called you moron right now? Wouldn't I? Do you really think that the staff forum should be a place where the staff going go and call members names, because they aren't supposed to do it out here?

[Christina]

Probably not. I wouldn't complain since I called you one first. Everyone else did give me shit for saying it.

ETA: No I don't think it's ok. That's why I'm apologizing.

[Pavlov's Dog]

Incidentally, I'd prefer any suggestion of people having either a mental illness, or mental issues, be made in private rather than in public, as opposed to your, in my opinion completely unjustified, slur against Lao Tzu in another thread.

David B

I'd appreciate a lot of things.

Evasion noted.

David B (does not have mod hat on here, as evading points, while IMV undesirable, cannot be legislated against)

I am not evading your point, you are just missing the point.

[Pavlov's Dog]

Everyone else did give me shit for saying it.

I wouldn't know, because I couldn't see it. But I have been called a lot of names out here, without anybody getting shit for it.

[David B]

I'd appreciate a lot of things.

Evasion noted.

David B (does not have mod hat on here, as evading points, while IMV undesirable, cannot be legislated against)

I am not evading your point, you are just missing the point.

Oh, I understood your point!

One that could equally well have been made in the process of actually addressing my post, the one you evaded.

David

[ravenscape]

An off topic squabble has been moved to The Charred Remains.

Please dial it back, folks.

Thanks,

Raven

[deadman_932]

Excuse me, but could you folks take it to a more appropriate thread?

This thread is about opening up the forum books periodically, per Jobar's proposal:

On a couple of other threads, I've put it forth that TR should, every six months, put all the threads in the SF into a read-only forum visible to all registered members.

IOW, on TR's first birthday, a forum is created with all the SF threads from the beginning to six months. At 1 1/2 years, all the SF threads from 6 months to 1 year old are added. And so forth.

Since occasionally there is information bandied about which should be kept from the public eye- e-mail and physical addresses, real names not already in public view, and the like- all such information should be blanked out. In fact it would be a good idea for the officials to post anything like that in color, to make the editing job simpler.

I'm quite aware that even things that are six months to a year old, will probably bring out some drama llamas. But if this board is to be run as some analog of a republic, then we the people need to be able to eventually see all the things that those running the board have said and done. It would be well for all those with authority to remember, that their star chamber is not totally private.


The issue you seem to be dealing with would appear to be best settled in the "I Know There is A Secret Thread" thread here: http://www.talkrational.org/showthread.php?t=1055

I can't enforce shit here, but I'm just asking...this issue is important, please.

Edit: whoops, Raven beat me to it. Thanks!

[Jobar]

To Jobar, what would be your response to Dean's point? --

2) If people know that what they say somewhere will be read by the people they are talking about, they'll just sanitize that discussion and the real discussion will happen via PM or email or chat or whatever other really private medium is available. It's what happened at IIDB when we were discussing another staff member, and it is what happens at RnR where there is no private staff forum. Those asking for all discussions to be made public aren't living in the real world unless they want the PM system to be disabled and they want any other communication between people banned. It's just not practical to want to stop people talking amongst themselves before making public statements - and if you accept that it is going to happen anyway then there is no point making things more awkward for the staff, since that way it will be more difficult to recruit and keep staff.

KWSN, and Dean- I expected this problem to be brought up, and it's a valid one. On one of the other threads where I mentioned this, I made it clear that it wasn't a perfect solution, and would generate problems of its own- but at least those would be new and different problems!

Let me ask this. My understanding is that, right now, TR has only one Staff Forum- the admins and mods can see all official discussions. What system is being used when the admins need to discuss a moderator's actions, or suitability as a moderator? Is that done in full view of the one being discussed?

I have no illusions that my proposed method would make impossible shady back-room wheeling and dealing, or prevent some staff clique from moving the board in directions that the general membership wouldn't want it to go. (Let me make clear that I don't suspect the present staff of anything like this. But as others have pointed out, they may not be on staff for as long as the board lasts; and even competent, honest and intelligent people can sometimes screw up badly.)

But if TR wants to become some analog of a republic, then its citizens (members) should have maximal practical access to the government (staff).

Yes, some things that the staff *must* discuss, need to be kept private. Yes, having some form of Sunshine Law will make it more awkward to carry out those discussions. Yes, sometimes there will be situations where PMs or some other private alternative is used before anything is posted where it will be, or eventually become, visible.

Still, I think that my proposal would help show a serious commitment to openness on the part of the TR founders, and this commitment would work against the creeping autocracy and secretiveness which slowly carried II to the place where it is now.

We all agree that II had/has much to recommend it, in terms of board management and policy. We want TR to take advantage of the lessons we learned from II. But we also want to avoid the systemic errors which finally screwed it up. IMO, and clearly others' too, running the board from within a star chamber, which is never open to the view of those whose posts form the board, is an invitation to aristocracy and autocracy. So even though periodically opening the SF to public view will entail some problems, I think it's worth at least a try.

[Bright Life]

Reported Posts aren't on the table here, are they?

I don't think "Reported Posts" should be made public. I wouldn't want people to be discouraged from reporting because they think someone who is being an asshole at the time is going to come back and be an even bigger asshole later. And honestly, if a person is a really big asshole, he or she is likely to go looking to stir up old drama at any opportunity.

This is a problem overall, which is the issue at hand, I think, with any public release of previously private threads.

It seems to me that releasing "some" private threads is where the conversation is going now. Am I right?

[Worldtraveller]

Reported Posts aren't on the table here, are they?

I don't think "Reported Posts" should be made public. I wouldn't want people to be discouraged from reporting because they think someone who is being an asshole at the time is going to come back and be an even bigger asshole later. And honestly, if a person is a really big asshole, he or she is likely to go looking to stir up old drama at any opportunity.

This is a problem overall, which is the issue at hand, I think, with any public release of previously private threads.

It seems to me that releasing "some" private threads is where the conversation is going now. Am I right?

Reported posts are only visible to the person making the report, and the staff. (Unless there are permissions screwed up. Can any members see lots of reported posts in the 'IN Confidence' forum?)

I think we are only talking about openeing up threads from the staff forum here. Good question, though.

[Jobar]

Reported Posts aren't on the table here, are they?

I don't think "Reported Posts" should be made public. I wouldn't want people to be discouraged from reporting because they think someone who is being an asshole at the time is going to come back and be an even bigger asshole later. And honestly, if a person is a really big asshole, he or she is likely to go looking to stir up old drama at any opportunity.

This is a problem overall, which is the issue at hand, I think, with any public release of previously private threads.

It seems to me that releasing "some" private threads is where the conversation is going now. Am I right?

Hadn't considered that, actually. If the RP thread leads to any serious discussion concerning board policy, then yes, it ought to be visible. If not, then no, not necessarily.

If transparency is going to be a big thing here at TR, then we ordinary members need to realize that transparency works both ways; what we say about board policy, and about other members, ought to be within the public domain, eventually anyway.

Remember, I made an impassioned plea for TR to have a Private Forum for regular and respected contributors. I'm not saying that we can't have *any* privacy. When II had the Freethinkers Private Forums, I posted a large percentage of my contributions there. (I'd prefer a system of meritocracy, rather than a republic, actually; with the members of the Private Forum being the ones with the votes. But I'm not going to make a big production out of that; I think becoming an analog of a republic is a laudable goal for TR.)

The ones pointing out that we're at risk of too closely duplicating the systems of II, and thus the systemic problems endemic to it, are dead on. So any time we hear the words "official privacy", we need to realize that can be taken as "official secrecy". And too much secrecy is death to a republic.

[Jobar]

A note on assholes, which isn't really OT: there needs to be a policy that sufficiently large, loud, and nasty ones get banned. That, as much as anything, ought to be one of the major differences between TR and RnR; we have a much lower tolerance for assholish behavior. (IMO, PD isn't in that range yet, but then he hasn't been abusing me directly. Others may disagree, and do, I feel sure.)

[Octavia]

But I have been called a lot of names out here, without anybody getting shit for it.

In fairness, you've also called a lot of names. Some of your insulting posts remain in the TH, instead of being split to the forum basement, where many posts that insult you have been sent. So my sympathy for your situation isn't very large.

As to Jobar's suggestion, I agree with it for several reasons.

Basically, it comes down to trust. When TR started, I think it was perhaps naive to expect that conflicts from other boards (IIDB, HH, RnR) wouldn't spill over here. They clearly have. Trust is at a premium.

Lack of trust is manifesting itself in several ways. An example of this is assertion of the subjective as objective fact. You believe that talking about Mason was "gossip". I don't. You think that "cowardice" is why we don't release your thread for public viewing - and yet my PM box contains messages from other posters who consider it not cowardice but prudence - they believe that giving in once to "blackmail" of what they consider to be "trolling" will lead to a future where we always give in to it.

All these things are subjective, and the fact that we're putting so much stake in our own opinions is due largely, IMO, to lack of trust. To me, Jobar's suggestion goes some way towards mitigating that - by requiring all "sides" to give.

PD, I don't think that you trust me, and that's certainly your prerogative. I'm sure that you have what you consider valid reasons for doing so. An example of that is the suggestion that the ex-IIDB staff have been so brainwashed by the way of doing things there that we can't conceive of other ways to run a board.

But it goes both ways - in all honesty, I don't trust you either. And that is my prerogative. It's not because of the positions that you have been arguing - people like Rathpig and mac_philo agree with many of your positions, and yet I trust and respect them. It's because I doubt your motives, to be honest.

Both of us, however, could be wrong. I'm pretty sure that neither of us, though, is willing to go the step of acting as if we were if the other doesn't do the same. There's got to be movement on both sides.

Now it might seem picky and getting-at-you to put the above like I did, but I'm trying to make a point. You don't trust me, and I don't trust you, and we both may have what we think are good reasons for that - but this little dynamic is playing out over the board in dozens of different pairings. It's like daggers drawn in here sometimes! That's not something that I want to see continue.

What I like about Jobar's suggestion (with certain reservations) is that it provides a measure of proactive transparency by the staff, as opposed to what I consider the reactive measures of the ombuddy and the recall system. But it's main point of favour, IMO, is that is requires movement by both sides. Members have to trust staff to do their jobs without getting in their face about every single thing, and staff have to trust members to see their decision-making process after the fact, and not stir up shit for the sake of netdrama.

Perhaps it's still naive to think that it will work. There will always be trolls looking for netdrama, ready to paw through old threads looking for something, anything, that they can twist and turn and squint through one eye at in order to see if it can be possibly insulting to anyone, just to raise hell for the sake of it. I can live with the prospect of that - but you will have to live with the prospect of staff discussing things in private for the sake of smooth running. Yes, even members. Would you be willing to live with that?

(Caveat: am speaking of my own individual preferences here, not the overall admin or staff response to Jobar's idea.)

[Pavlov's Dog]

But I have been called a lot of names out here, without anybody getting shit for it.

In fairness, you've also called a lot of names.

And I have got a lot of shit for it. Do you see the difference?

Lack of trust is manifesting itself in several ways. An example of this is assertion of the subjective as objective fact. You believe that talking about Mason was "gossip". I don't.

Who gives a fuck if it was gossip then. Let's get that out of the way. I know the dictionary considers it gossip, but let's say that we lived on a planet where words don't have standard meanings, and you can play semantics games to make the mean whatever you want. Let's say that it wasn't gossip. Was it appropriate? Are you telling me that it is appropriate for RexT state that Mason has mental issues? Is it okay for Christina to call me a moron? Is that what the staff forum is for? Tell me that is an appropriate use for the staff forum.

You think that "cowardice" is why we don't release your thread for public viewing - and yet my PM box contains messages from other posters who consider it not cowardice but prudence - they believe that giving in once to "blackmail" of what they consider to be "trolling" will lead to a future where we always give in to it.

Oh, that is why you aren't releasing it? Then let me use some reverse psychology on you. I do this with kids sometimes. If you do release my thread then you are cowards and belly lickers. You better not release my thread or I will get you!

How about you don't give a fuck what I think, or what the rest of the people PMing you say, and just do the fucking right thing. And everyone keeps throwing around the word immature in reference to me.

PD, I don't think that you trust me, and that's certainly your prerogative. I'm sure that you have what you consider valid reasons for doing so. An example of that is the suggestion that the ex-IIDB staff have been so brainwashed by the way of doing things there that we can't conceive of other ways to run a board.

I don't trust you because instead of being unpleasant towards your buddies, you would rather play semantics games with the meanings of words, instead of do the right thing. I trust other moderators and admin. Because they have shown to be trustworthy.

But it goes both ways - in all honesty, I don't trust you either. And that is my prerogative.

I don't care. I have no authority over you. I am not aski