In this thread Fleecy Q+A people have indicated that they are getting a bit fed up with some of the broken record mantra.

On this thread OS4 on Pegasos I intervened at the end because not only was it way off topic but it seemed to be fitting into the above category that users of the forum had started to complain about as well as getting into polite but still mudslinging all the same - only to offend Gary_C. Note also that I locked it only to ask a moderator to take a look to see if it should be locked or moderated.

Gary contacted me in private ( as well as making a public statement ) basically accusing me of moderating in favour of an Amiga bias, I feel that I have to point out that this is not the case, that the content of his posts and his points were not moderated despite going WAY off topic.

He feels understerbly angered that he did not get the last word and all his point of view across. However he did make one good point that bears repeating on here - should moderators and those with moderator access stay out of topics in order that they are not seen by some people to make moderation decisions merely to score points ( which is the knub and crux of his accusation )?

On another note, I find the speculation on ongoing court cases and the reality-TV mentality of the Amiga Inc financial situation to be rather ghoulish. We know what the "facts" are, and we have links to depositions and we also know that none of us knows the whole story yet some of us feel able to sit in judgement and devote pages to endless speculation that we are not in a position to make stick.
I do not, in fact I feel that IF or WHEN Amiga Inc go t1tsup, lose court cases and whatnot THEN it is news and worthy of discussion. To preempt judicial decisions and to
speculate on what a given financial position is or the contents of contracts
we have never seen is pointless and also should be discouraged.

Finally, the constant raking up of on schedule and rocking and similar has been done to death in my view and is used only to throw yet more mud and to wind people up and should be discouraged.

Thats my POV. Any constructive comments on whether this is a right or a wrong direction to take, or how to moderate without getting accused of bias are welcome.

I think some people who come here are forgetting where they are, this is AMIGAWORLD, not Pegasosworld or Morphosworld...

Moderators have a hard job, some people who get moderated will think it's unfair, start getting a little paranoid, start screaming about it all over the place, sadly it's just human nature :(

Other's who let their brain get into gear before they start running round in circles screaming, will probably realise why it was done, and that maybe their message would be better received in a different forum/thread/topic/site etc.

I use quite a few forums, about the only one where I don't see this sort of thing happening is EAB, they have banned politics and religion, watch out or it might happen here...

The other problem is Ego, 'my opinion is better than yours' type rubbish, if any person starts dominating a thread or threads, forcing his/her personal views upon people, he/she should be moded and warned, and if they carry on, put up a pole on whether or not to kick them out, that way WE decide and the moderators are relatively blameless...

This should also apply to people who haven't got a clue and still insist they know everything and give lots of bad advice (don't think there's any here though ).

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Visit the Official OS4 Support Site for more help.

It may be that your sole purpose is to serve as a warning to others.

Personally I think that you're getting into dangerous territory here. "Robust" debate about all topics relating to Amiga (and unfortunately that encompasses some unpleasant topics) is healthy. I personally hate it when discussion is terminated because a moderator disagrees with a point of view.

I would say, that when the same argument is being recycled in the same or other contemporaneous threads then yes, advise the poster of this and mark the post as a duplicate.

Where the thread degenerates into mud-slinging then I guess the debate is over.

Just my point of view really.

Cheers

DrK



The smilie is incidental to the post, I just wanted to see a dancing banana

Quote:

I personally hate it when discussion is terminated because a moderator disagrees with a point of view.

If that is what happenned, then that would not be pleasant.

Anyone feeling that a discussion is about him/her getting the last word should take a good look at him/herself. Is it really all that important to prove yourself to some virtual all seeing audience that only exist in your mind anyway.

Here's a little secret that I can share: At that point noone else gives a frell about your last word or you 'honor'. You're already way out of line. And it has nothing, absolutely Nothing to do with which side you might or might not be on.

Some good tips:

- Avoid topics that you know will upset others. Even if that means not commenting on an attack on something you believe in. The person doing the attack was wrong and two wrongs doesn't make it right.

- Avoid sensitive topics that you know has been discussed again and again and again before here and on other sites. If you have to touch the subject, do it once and then leave it.

- If you have to, state your opinion and then leave it at that, very very few care about you going on a tirade to defend what you have or haven't said. You opinion is already on public record. No need to reiterate it over and over again in the same thread.

- If you still feel that you need to go on a crusade, then there's plenty of sites that is more than happy to carry such contents on their web pages.

- This is a place where people want to get along and discuss a common interest. So make it a point to get along and avoid that which open wounds.

/Björn

While interpretations of the known facts can be worthwhile, we pretty much had them all by now. Repeating this stuff over and pulling it from thread to thread is imho just trolling with intention to hurt.
Warn once, then remove.

Quote:

Severin wrote: I think some people who come here are forgetting where they are, this is AMIGAWORLD, not Pegasosworld or Morphosworld...

There is a good point here. We have this problem that MorphOS and AROS people lay claim to the Amiga name. It's obvious why this is, they both have strong amiga relations, and I'd never dispute this. But the problem lies in that AROS and MorphOS have different names which can be applied to various things like websites, whereas the Amiga sub-community (as in AmigaOS and AmigaONE), have a name which has become a generic name for all three sub-communities. Hence whenever the the word "Amiga" is applied it is considered fair game for all.

I believe this is part of the reason that AmigaWorld get so badly abused on other sites (AmigaIncWorld etc. etc.)

As far as I can see the internet community is thus:-

Amiga.org - Focuses on all solutions (does so quite well IMHO)
ANN - Warzone

MorphZone - Focuses on MOS only (Derogatory comments about Amiga/Hyperion/Eyetech encouraged)
MorphOS-News - Focuses on MOS/Pegasos

AmigaWorld - Focuses on AmigaOS/AmigaOne.

You get good discussions on Amiga.org, and is cool for most general things, ANN isn't worth the bother anymore which is a shame. MorphZone is everything the trolls accuse AmigaWorld of being, and worse. MorphOS News and AmigaWorld cover thier respective subjects well, and generally avoid the kind of bitter crossplatform wars that inflict the general sites. I find I'm more likely to discuss ideas and postive things at AW than I would elsewhere.

Hmmn, perhaps a change to AmigaOSWorld would help?

@ Orgin

Quote:

This is a place where people want to get along and discuss a common interest. So make it a point to get along and avoid that which open wounds.

I believe these are certainly two major reasons why AmigaWorld has seen so much growth.

1) Common Interests - AmigaWorld is a support and discussion website for Amiga products.

2) Calm, supportive and constructive environment.

I believe that if certain visitors cannot identify themselves with these two points they should take a look in the mirror and think by themselves: "Why the hell am I here at AmigaWorld instead of at a more suitable alternative?".

If there were no alternatives it would be more understandable, but if your aim is to impose your views on people with different opinions or try to simply cause conflict then please move elsewhere.

It takes alot of time and effort to build something special. Destroying things is alot easier to do and it's the job of the moderators here to prevent this from happening.

IMO any issues with regard to moderations should be handled privately. The moderators here will genuinely do their best to preserve that what has made AmigaWorld special, but we are all humans and therefor destined to make mistakes along the way.

Moderation is always tricky. Some people think the right to free speech is mutually exclusive with moderation.

I use this site because the level of debate is generally fairier and more releveant that the flaming and mindless trolling on other sites. (Those who revel in that sort of thing are welcome to carry on, but keep it somewhere else!) The apparent "mental age" of users of this site is higher.

I have no problem with conflicting views, and often a discussion will change opinions you might hold. However, that requires a maturity and intelligence not always present in some debates. Moderation should cut in when people are just throwing insults and/or bleating on about already stated opinions without adding to the discussion.

IMHO, this site has unfairly had the repuation for being the "Amiga worshippers forum" because it will censor the heavily anti-Amiga trolling that is permitted elsewhere. Since there is little in the way of anti-genesi or anti-AROS or anti-MOS trolling here, it is not neccessarily obvious that this would also get moderated. Am I the only one who thinks it amusing that anyone who doesn't continually abuse Amiga Inc. must be a "mindless Amiga fanatic", as is anyone even suggesting criticism of the alternatives?

I agree. We do not need trolls from rival camps talking pegasos and/or morphos. gary_c was getting fanatical and biased.

@jungle

Perhaps he was, perhaps he wasn't. Let's keep this in general terms and not get into personal attacks.

/Björn

Dave,

In my opinion you did the correct thing, Davey (and the rest of the team, myself included) promote AmigaWorld as a place you can come and chat about all things Amiga without being subjected to flamewars and the like. In recent weeks a few threads have degenerated into such before being stopped, but only after several comments had to be removed/moderated. In this case the thread was simply locked and removed from the front page. It had however been done pretty much to death everybody who wanted too had put their point of view across (although some were failing to see said points of view ) This thread in my opnion was about to descend into a full blown flame war (and I've read a few on ANN and A.Org from start to finish). You put a stop to it and asked for the opinion of other moderators which is about all you can do really. All just my point of view of course.

Mark

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IceStar Media Ltd.

The only problem I see with AmigaWorld.net is that the only subject that seems sort of forbidden is the pegasos/morphos one.

On the other hand, i can not care less about them so it does not bother me much, but then again i am not here either to see Windows news etc that is up right now on the site. Just think about it, some claim this to be an AMIGA site and dont want no trolling peg/morph people but accept the non amiga stuff that is not connected with said party.

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AMiGA

If you want to avoid the situation where if you lock a thread that was getting out of hand and then get accused of being biased then you either have to not moderate at all, or stop it before it gets to that point.

The thing with moderation is that no one is ever going to be happy being moderated, and most probably will say so, it's a thankless job, you do a good job and people complain.

In my opinion I would get write a kind of constitution for AmigaWorld. Make rules what is allowed and what isn't and moderate to those guidelines.

For instance.
No personal attacks,
No attacks on Amiga, or it's employee's.
No attacks on Genesi, or it's employee's.
No attacks on Hyperion and it's employee's.
No atatcks on Eyetech and it's employee's etc.
No repeat topics which fail to add a new dimension to the issue at hand.
No threads designed to make political statements / idealogical points. e.g. Religion, OS choice, Republican vs democrats.

Of course you can add to these that maybe some are allowed in various forums, such as free for all. But remove free for all posts from the front page. or something.

I think the thing is if you want to moderate to do so early in a discussion just a comment saying, play nicely chaps or I'll have to get angry.

If there are issues people really feel strongly about how about creating a speciically moderated discussion area where each people can spend the time to write how they feel and put forward their opinion. with such posts being checked before being posted. This way the arguments can be kept to those with merit, and the same argument won't be repeated by a whole load of people over and over again.

This will also allow a cooling off period for posters , because lets face it we all get steamed some times and throw out a rant, and any points made are lost in the storm.

Uhm ok thats all for now... maybe more later.

The way I see it is that Amigaworld.net is *PRIMARILY* a site that focuses on the "real" Amiga (i.e. Amiga OS). Now I personally have nothing against the mention of MorphOS within the threads - but I do get slightly narked when the same few people repeat their "Amiga Inc are crap, Genesi are fantastic" arguments over and over again - and I think that when threads start to degenerate into this sort of thing then they should be locked.

To be honest - I do not think the moderation on this site is anyway near the level of censorship people try and make out it is, but there will always be those who deliberately try and get their comments moderated - and use it as an excuse as to why "amigaincworld.net is a site for blind amiga followers". What I don't understand is that if your comments get moderated and you don't like it then why not act like an adult and visit another site that does, rather than engage in this pathetic bitching that some people love so much?!

To put it bluntly, if you don't like the website and its policies, then don't visit it; but stop spoiling it for others who do.

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Life starts at 030, is fun at 040 and causes impotence at x86.

Quote:

Entropy wrote: If you want to avoid the situation where if you lock a thread that was getting out of hand and then get accused of being biased then you either have to not moderate at all, or stop it before it gets to that point. ********** LOSSY COMPRESSION ********** In my opinion I would get write a kind of constitution for AmigaWorld. Make rules what is allowed and what isn't and moderate to those guidelines. For instance. No personal attacks, No attacks on Amiga, or it's employee's. No attacks on Genesi, or it's employee's. No attacks on Hyperion and it's employee's. No atatcks on Eyetech and it's employee's etc. No repeat topics which fail to add a new dimension to the issue at hand. No threads designed to make political statements / idealogical points. e.g. Religion, OS choice, Republican vs democrats.

Now we're strolling (Trolling?) into dangerous territory here, especially with the clause "No personal attacks" as what constitutes a personal attack varies in proportion to the thickness of the recipient's skin as well as their cultural background. (eg: Call someone from Australia a b*st*rd and, depending on your tone of voice when you say it, you'll get any number of reactions from a slap on the back and a beer in your hand to a punch in the nose. Call someone from the U.S the exact same thing and 9 times out of 10 you're going to get a punch in the nose).

On the other hand if you happen to venture into Free For All (my favourite venue) without a hard hat and goggles then you kinda deserve everything you get.

Doug

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logicalheart wrote:
You know that pretty sound you play when the computer starts?
You need another one to play when the computer is actually ready to use.
Maybe add more for malfunctions and then we'll have music all day.

@ Step

Quote:

The only problem I see with AmigaWorld.net is that the only subject that seems sort of forbidden is the pegasos/morphos one.

Actually MOS and Pegasos never were really a taboo here at AmigaWorld and I am sure you will find various mentions of Peg/MOS within recent news articles. However only major (or Amiga-related) Peg/MOS, BeOS, Linux, etc news has made it onto AmigaWorld and actually we have covered various MOS/Peg reviews in the past as well.

I was even planning to write a news item as soon as the Pegasos2 would be released, however now I think it may be better to keep such news on the forums instead, so that if the discussion attracts certain people and things get out of hand we can conveniently remove the thread from the frontpage.

Moderation is good, but only in moderation.

It is completely correct that the main topic here is Amiga - afterall, it is AmigaWorld.net!!

However - and this is from the perspective of an Old Amigan returning to the scene - it doesn't matter how you look at it, Pegasos / MorphOS / AROS / UAE / Amithlon / AmigaOS 4 / AmigaOS 1.x / AmigaOS 2.x / AmigaOS 3.x / Classic Amiga / Retro Amiga / Future Amiga /... are all part of 'Amiga'. You may hate the fact, but it is still a fact.

Now, i'm not one side or another - but I did find it odd that when i wanted to find out the current state of affairs with the Amiga (from a Hardware and Software/OS point of view), I had to visit a number of sites.....

Perhaps the way forward is to have a dedicated Forum for this kind of stuff -- i mean, UAE has one... why not MorphOS et al. ??

Quote:

DJRJ wrote: Now we're strolling (Trolling?) into dangerous territory here, especially with the clause "No personal attacks" as what constitutes a personal attack varies in proportion to the thickness of the recipient's skin as well as their cultural background. (eg: Call someone from Australia a b*st*rd and, depending on your tone of voice when you say it, you'll get any number of reactions from a slap on the back and a beer in your hand to a punch in the nose. Call someone from the U.S the exact same thing and 9 times out of 10 you're going to get a punch in the nose). On the other hand if you happen to venture into Free For All (my favourite venue) without a hard hat and goggles then you kinda deserve everything you get. Doug

Well I assumed we are talking an entire site policy rather than just free for all.
What constitutes a personal attack is a decision for the moderators to make, either when they feel something has gone too far, or there is a complaint.
The reason you would do this is because personal insults virtually always lead to a flame war.

Whether or not some insults are just playful joking around or not, that is irrelevent, a lot of spoken word interaction has extra cues from the pitch of voice, and person to person also has body language, as well as you mention cultural differences.
On the forum there are just words, and whilst one person may understand that some other person is just joking others may not.
I know there are people who feel to avoid using such words or expressions is an affront to their liberty, but I would advise them to get their liberty elsewhere.

If anybody complains about censorship, I would advise them to actually do some research and learn about censorship, the way it manifests itself, the legality, censorship through hstory, so they when they come to use the word next they might be able to apply it with a little modicum of sense.

Personally, I have found only those threads which are permitted to go off topic are those threads that turn into flamewars.
Simply moderate on that basis and you will remove 95% of degeneration.

For instance, the thread that this arose from departed from the topic at hand when Gary_C accused Fleecy of saying there were organized groups with the purpose of defaming Amiga Inc.
While he is perfectly within his rights to hold and express that opinion it should have been expressed in a new thread in the forums, not where it was.

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