There are somethings that are unacceptable, whatever a person's personal challenges and whoever a person's supporters.
And indeed "The Great Purge" was explicitly part of our remit from our then admin Wreybies: ETA: And while the great purge was going on, Jan, Moose, and I were poring over the Rules with the intensity of lawyers prepping for an appearance before the Supreme Court (feel free to sub in your nation's top judicial body) to figure out whether we were even allowed to give formal points warnings for various bad behaviors and having long, long discussions to make sure we weren't overreacting or working from positions of personal opinion or prejudice. It was not always pretty in our little ModSpace; anyone who got the boot really, really needed it. When I was still a member of the then three-mod team I remember that WF was my first check when I woke up and my last check before I went to bed. With Jan and Moose both living in the same time zone I needed to make sure that there was nothing going at either end of my "shift" that either of them needed to be aware of. Okay, that might have been a hangover from my years at 9-1-1, but we all took it quite seriously and from the outside, it looks like the current team isn't slouching at all either. Can I suggest that this thread be moved to the "Support and Feedback" forum, maybe stickied? That would leave it open for general concerns while moving it out of the spotlight in the Lounge where it could get...unwieldy.
Thats a good call - i wanted to leave it where it was for 24 hours in case "member in good standing" actually had the courage of their convictions and was willing to discuss things like grown ups instead of back-shooting anonymously Of course I'm not that surprised to find 24 hours later that they haven't. I'm now moving it as suggested
Because its not just about if the site is dying anymore, and hasn't been for several pages... and since the concern that it might be was unfounded we don't really want a thread with that title hanging about
Up to about two days ago, I had never been on trustpilot, but followed the link and left a review that accurately records my opinion. Very nearly left it in my real world name but spotted it last minute. And lost another opportunity to go with Rigor Mortis. Whichever, this internet is a scary place. Can't see it catching on. If it's any consolation, two reviews, to my eyes at least, have been removed from the site, both of which explicitly excoriated the mod team. One, in particular, was a very personal attack on @big soft moose. Though I assume that's not a given name, unless Mr and Mrs Moose had a uniquely quirky sense of humour, I must say I was surprised that such invective was allowed stand when it referenced a particular individual. Some sites don't just condone scurrilous activity, they positively invite and induce it. A bit like the homeless alcoholic in recovery, there needs to be a dry house away from the night shelter for things not to end badly. WF is the dry house with strict modes of acceptable behaviour. There are many, many places for those still locked in addiction to vent spleen. Should you have issue with the rules as applied on WF, just go somewhere else. I would have thought that was simple. I looked at a number of writing sites and signed up to a few but really only keep coming back here. And when I think of the indignation and distress caused to those who believe themselves constrained by these rules, the torment they must feel, I thank Christ that there's no bombs landing on my house tonight. Truly, get some perspective. My one censure, that I'm aware of, occurred after I left hurtful remarks on a thread. That it wasn't intended to be hurtful and actually conveyed the diametric opposite of what I did intend is hardly a robust defence from someone aspiring to be a writer. The mod intervention was, in my opinion, entirely appropriate to the circumstances and I've tried to be more careful subsequently. I've also regained my usual perspective that I'm ok with being an opinionated old fart but really don't need the world to hear every opinion I possess. When did I forget that? I struggle to believe that people really cheated in competitions. Not only do I not have words, I can't even find an emoji to express my thoughts on that one. Regarding the medals, really? It's nice and all, but doesn't diminish the stack of "declined" on my submittable account. I'm glad to hear it's not the uppermost priority for any sane person and also express my condolences to @big soft moose. Being a mod, I imagine, is a bit like being a referee on a football pitch. Even the great Nigel Owens was more likely to be addressed by his oriental name (Japanese perhaps?) in my household: Fuksakeref, and that even after he favoured my team (what took you so long?) My point is, mod or referee, you're never right even when you do the right thing. The start of this thread was a bit like a Christmas Carol with ghosts of past, present and future reminiscing over the forum's history. The glimpse into the effort that goes into keeping the show on the road has been interesting and, largely, thankless. So, thanks.
Okay, you broke my brain (well, sprained it) by making me try to put that through standard kana transcription: ふk(u?)さけれ(f?) until I finally figured it out. ファクセクレフ, but he doesn't sound like one of ours, Russian maybe
The general mod experience is that you can't please everyone and trying results in pleasing no one... the staff team are doing a good job if most of the members are mostly happy most of the time.
This thread was an enlightening read. I'm just a noob of course, but I wanted to voice my support for this forum. I've found it fun to participate in thus far, and have appreciated the answers to my occasional writing questions. Discovering the progress journal section has been a real boon to my writing. It feels weird now to think that I'd never thought of such a thing after all this time. I really appreciate the lack of a dominant clique who decides what opinions people are allowed to have. I haven't really encountered any pile-ons or anything of the sort since I joined. I've encountered some opinions that I find abhorrent, however the discussions always remain respectful, and that's the way it should be. Banning people for having the "wrong" opinion on a subject isn't helpful. Reading the thoughts of those who I disagree with has offered valuable perspective in many cases, and sometimes has even altered my position on things to a degree. I've found it troubling how the "woke" stuff is dividing people who might share 95-99% of their values and principles. And certain topics are just off-limits; like there is only one position you are allowed to have, no discussion permitted. It's weird. That's not how people learn and grow. Anyway. My experience thus far has been overwhelmingly positive, and I am sure that I will remain a relatively active member for the foreseeable future.
They say the two things you should never talk about if you want to keep friends are religion and politics. I've promised myself that if I was to use this site in any way, I wouldn't use the debate room. Even if I had the time for a discussion there, it would just take mental energy away from other stuff. You're probably not going to change anyone's mind over a writing forum anyway, and besides, on both of those subjects my opinions are probably a bit contentious. If people are going to troll this forum over nonsense, I doubt they'd be much better over that. That's just me anyway.
same. I've gotten sucked into 1 or 2 debates on here thus far and have disengaged myself from it (despite it having followed me into my DMs). not worth it.
That's why I asked for my access to the debate room to be removed. I get enough of that crap elsewhere.
I was going to say we're happy to delete anyone's access to the debate room if they want us to... i just put them into the same user group as the third debate room warning from the admin panel... no point, no censure, just no D/R access. The other thing i'd say is if it follows you into your DMs and you don't want it to, let us know... we have zero tolerance for people bothering other members via unsolicited dM
I asked for my privileges to the COVID forum to be removed for this very reason, and it’s an element of the moderation and forum rules I consider distasteful. I have/had my own opinions on the whole COVID thing, but I knew expressing them in there was pointless as it would result in me being gagged. The mods will spout nonsense about it being done because opinions that contradict government guidelines could get the forum in trouble, but I don’t buy that for a second. It’s more a case of the mods refusing to have their own opinions questioned, because god forgive they might be wrong about something.
Nope - you might notice that Mingo and I are close to 180 degrees apart on many aspects of the covid question and daniel and I even more so - its got nothing to do with our individual opinions or not wanting them questioned... The reason for the rule about not posting content that disagrees with the Who/CDC etc was as stated - that particularly near the beginning of the pandemic, sites that hosted content that went against the official position were getting dungeoned by the google ads and search engines, and in some cases deleted by their hosts... This article from July 2020 gives a taste of the sort of thing we were up against (my bold) https://www.silicon.co.uk/workspace/google-ads-coronavirus-346452 That was in relation to google ads (which is how the adverts on this site run) but there were also similar things said about the bots that determine the SEO ranking of sites. That being the case we were not willing to put your (or anyone's) need to express their opinion about CV19 above the survival of this forum. As we come out of the pandemic towards an endemic phase things have got noticeably looser in this regard, although alphabet who own google are still saying that they'll demonetise ad display on sites that host certain content about CV19.
@OurJud , i dont know how active you are on Facebook, but for the reason Moose just said here is why my posts were removed and blocked on Facebook (and all I did was RE-SHARE memes and humorous posts like "ginger ale cures everything including COVID" -- clearly a joke-- but do go against health guidelines). Its the fact that the over all "they" dont want misinformation spreading. doesnt matter what you personally believe. the content you put out could be seen as contributing to the spread of misinformation.
Its also worth saying its not a decision that we took lightly... as a writing forum we are in favour of freedom of speech and opposed to censorship, our normal rules of play are that its not about what you say but how you say it... However we are also in favor of not getting deleted by our host, or having our SEO etc turned off... and since this was an unprecedented public health emergency we had to make a difficult decision relatively quickly. We also had to balance the question of potential litigation - if for example we allowed someone to promote the idea that injecting disinfectant would kill the virus, we'd then be liable when some silly sod read that, injected themselves with disinfectant and then died... and since the site has no meaningful funds for civil defense something like that would be the end of the road These sorts of decisions for a backdrop to the running of a forum that most members never see or have any reason to appreciate exist, the current tar baby is the war in Ukraine...it doesn't really effect us much because we don't have an appreciable Russian membership, but sites that host a lot of pro Russian propaganda have the potential for similar problems...meaning that fora who do have a membership likely to post such things are having to think carefully about their content rules
For what it’s worth I’ve never posted to FB, but I’m not necessarily talking about ‘the spreading of dangerous misinformation’. I’m talking about expressing a harmless opinion (let’s just say about the wearing of face masks, for instance). My opinion on face masks could be seen neither as dangerous nor misinformation.
Right at the start i looked at writing a lockdown cookbook, but i had to shelve the idea because it was impossible to market it since neither facebook nor amazon would allow adverts that mentioned CV19, lockdown, or a bunch of other pandemic related terms.
Unfortunately that's not true - if your opinion was that facemasks aren't effective/necessary for example, that's exactly the kind of content that seo bots in 2020/21 would have flagged as being both dangerous (ie encouraging people not to follow guidance and thus the spread of the virus) and misinformation (ie not in line with the governmental guidance) Two years down the road things are a bit less fraught and the current steer is that discussions and opinions like that would not get flagged, but that statements like "I'm a medical expert and the science says...." still fall into the sensitive content bracket.
In some jurisdictions, that sort of content is also illegal, and it would be a shame for WF to be blocked in certain countries.