Starting Threads on the Forum.

[mawnansmiff]

There is a lot more to us than just closing threads. There are entirely secret meetings we have, plans put into place, and conversations had with members. There is so much more to it than meets the eye.

I fully get what you say Didi and appreciate the job of a mod is not an easy one & most work is done behind closed doors, but sometimes it seems as though the lunatics have taken over the asylum and it's that that I balk at.

Yes threads are fluid and so they should be, I just resent that a tiny minority of members seem to delight in doing nothing other than chucking a spanner in the works and thus spoiling it for the majority and they seem to do so with impunity.

Regards,

Jay.

 

[TheIronMonkey]

People! Just like Soylent Green!

I like the Edward G. Robinson tie in with pipe tobacco!

 

[sablebrush52]

I fully get what you say Didi and appreciate the job of a mod is not an easy one & most work is done behind closed doors, but sometimes it seems as though the lunatics have taken over the asylum and it's that that I balk at.

Yes threads are fluid and so they should be, I just resent that a tiny minority of members seem to delight in doing nothing other than chucking a spanner in the works and thus spoiling it for the majority and they seem to do so with impunity.

Regards,

Jay.

Forums I've been on, actions that some here make for their own amusement would get them the boot on the first go. The problem with that is that the forum environment can become so buttoned up that interesting content becomes extremely scarce, next to nonexistent.
PM employs a lighter touch, but as I've been given to understand, there are some standards of comportment, and those who gather enough points will eventually get the hook. So what seems like impunity is simply the beginning of the road to PM forum oblivion.

 

[mikethompson]

I'm glad that I missed that thread and subsequent nonsense. I have all of two people on my ignore list, and I'm sure at least one of them was an active participant.

 

[crashthegrey]

Having moderated dozens of Facebook groups, where things are often more ridiculous than you can imagine, I try to be very patient with admin and moderating folks in general. It's not an easy life by any means. Hard decisions need to be made on the fly.

 

[ssjones]

It’s a Forum. No one person has all the answers or opinions.

Threads are often organic and they do what they do.

The easiest way to understand threads is to understand yourself. I often ignore threads or certain contributors just because I don’t want to get worked up or too deep in the weeds.

This Forum operates as it should. It’s the people that short circuit.

Ashdigger sums up nicely, by my 10 year experience here as a moderator.

Unfortunately, I just don't often have time to negotiate with members who go off the rails. The rules are pretty clear, some members just chose to ignore them. Sometime, a moderators action gets the proper attention. A few days ago, an aforementioned thread went off the rails and someone(s) ALMOST rec'd a ban. One of those members sent me a very nice, and appreciated apology for their actions. The comments made in the thread were inconsistent from I had perceived their character to be, so I'm glad that I held off. Thats a great example the camaraderie we generally have here, that make being a moderator rewarding.

Filtering out inappropriate content from a particular thread is also time consuming, and due to quoted replies (like this one), multi-page threads have to be combed to ensure inappropriate comments aren't quoted.

Sometimes I know the outcome of thread by the title or first post, others surprise me.
Threads that don't have anything to do with pipesmoking can often turn contentious, as there's no common thread, so be careful posting in the General Discussion section.

I try to be optimistic, that a thread doesn't derail, but my instincts are usually correct.

Moderating is completely subjective, we're not professionals. We have a relatively small team, and all of us work full time (or more in the past two years). Speaking for myself, I do the best that I can.

 

[kcghost]

Our Mods are not perfect but they do a great job.

 

[warren]

I just resent that a tiny minority of members seem to delight in doing nothing other than chucking a spanner in the works

That tiny group is made up of people who highly value their perspective and, no matter how skewed or perverted, honestly believe all of us benefit from reading their thoughts They often cannot resist interjecting politics in otherwise benign discussions.

 

[admin]

It's a fact of life that this is just how forums are. I've been moderating forums for 20-years, and this one for 13. When you have a large group of people, and this one is the largest it's ever been, things have a greater chance of becoming unruly.

It's definitely not easy to manage.

There is no getting around the fact that there are all kinds of people with all different types of personalities, biases, opinions, levels of tolerance / intolerance, etc.

In today's world, there are times that it seems that civility and positivity is at an all-time low.

However, there are still plenty of people that remain respectful, polite, patient, and understanding.

From day one I have always wanted our moderating to be done with a lighter touch, and to give people the benefit of the doubt, and so on.

The mods and I exert significant patience, tolerance, thought and discussion amongst ourselves on a weekly, and sometimes daily basis when making big moderation decisions.

Many times a moderator will be making decisions on their own as well. Our mods have lots of experience, and they wouldn't be mods if I didn't trust their judgement. In thirteen years and thousands of moderator actions, I have reversed a mod's action twice. None of us are perfect, but we do our best to keep things running smoothly.

As for myself, and the rest of the moderators, we greatly appreciate the members that participate in a positive way that help make these forums worth coming back to on a regular basis. Thank you for that.

As for the rest of you ... just kidding.

Thanks to the mods as well for all the work they do.

Have a great rest of your Sunday, and a great summer. Fire up the grill, and fire up your pipe!

 

[JOHN72]

It’s a Forum. No one person has all the answers or opinions.

Threads are often organic and they do what they do.

The easiest way to understand threads is to understand yourself. I often ignore threads or certain contributors just because I don’t want to get worked up or too deep in the weeds.

This Forum operates as it should. It’s the people that short circuit.

Same...............

 

[python]

A big ditto to what Kevin and Al said. I am going to add some of my thoughts on this, so excuse the length of this post.

Jay, we all love your posts and please don't let anything deter you (or anyone else) from posting something that you find interesting and/or want to share. We want everyone to feel comfortable posting here and do not want anyone to feel afraid to post.

But unfortunately some threads get closed for various reasons. As the old saying goes, a few bad apples spoil the bunch. So when people post things that are against the rules, or derail a thread beyond fixing, it's going to get shut down.

As Al said, we all have full time jobs. And I'm sure that most people know with the current situations going on around the world, that there are other things that we have to handle on top of our jobs that require time from us.

This is not our 'job'. Moderating is done on a volunteer basis and we have to make time in our busy lives to fit it in. Sometimes, the easiest thing to do is to close a thread as, depending on whether or not the moderator who catches something, is busy with other things at that time. This is especially true if a thread gets to 4-5 pages or more before we catch it.

If we can catch a thread right when something happens, we mostly delete that post and leave it open. But once it has multiple posts that are leading down a road better left untraveled, it's just better to close it. I have personally tried to get threads back on track in the past before closing them and it has never worked.

Most of the time we do not have the time to explain why something was done. Or to explain in elementary terms to someone that broke the rules how they specifically broke the rules and then have discussions on why the rules exist and that they're dumb, etc. That's why when I say, 'The rules are the rules and to just follow them', I'm not trying to be a jerk. I'm telling it like it is. The rules are there for a reason and they're not going anywhere.

I know that there are a some people on the forums that do not like me because they perceive me as being rude, abrasive, too strict, (place other adjective here), etc. Trust me, I do not intend to come off as rude. I talk straight without beating around the bush. I speak to adults like adults because I expect them to handle themselves as adults.

One of my responsibilities here is to enforce the rules, and I do it indiscriminately.

I also try to create harmony amongst the members. That is why I have always said that if you come across a thread that bothers you, to ignore it and just move on. Let the people who enjoy that subject enjoy themselves talking about it. We don't have to post a response to everything.

If people would self moderate and think about their post and if it breaks any rules or will get a thread closed before posting it, maybe we wouldn't have to moderate things so often.

For the life of me, I can't wrap my head around why people choose to argue and fight over every little thing these days. We all have different opinions and beliefs on things. That's what makes the world great. If we all liked the same things and agreed on everything, it would be a pretty boring place.

CIVIL discourse is always a good thing, but you will never (or very rarely) get someone to change their belief about something. So arguing/fighting about it is a lost cause anyway.

Think about this; for every second that you are angry about something, is a second of your life that you will never get back. Poof, it's gone.

When we have so many things in life that are out of our control that will upset us or make us angry, why would we CHOOSE to make ourselves upset over things that we don't have to?

OK, this post ending up being way longer than I intended. I just want everyone to get along and enjoy the site together and stop breaking rules and getting threads closed.

Peace Out

 

[telescopes]

Generally, it seems threads are shut down after a thread falls into a spat of personal rudeness or just simple crass statements. I often see posts being disagreeable just to be contrarian when all that was needed would have been a statement that the posters experiences on a topic where not the same as others.

I love humor and I often find myself replying with a bit of dry wit to something I found funny in a post. But humor too often is in the eye of the beholder. For example, I’m not certain but I think that @sablebrush52 was making a reference to Amber Heard just a few post above this one. If he was, that would be very funny, and if he wasn’t, it still possesses some irony. Yet, perhaps, pointing that out might upset a reader who had a certain thoughts about the libel case that dominated the news for weeks.

What is a poster to do? Post only between the lines of what is considered safe? Have fun with a bit of a joke?

By virtual of all being smokers, we are already politically incorrect. In the eyes of many, we are not fit company by virtue of this fact alone.

But that shouldn’t stop us from being thoughtful of others.

 

[puff_not_snuff]

Well, when I think about starting a thread here I start it first on two other forums which has a less discerning public and moderation. After surveying the responses for a month I come to a decision on the feasibility of having a constructive discussion on the subject here, then I give myself a month to let my decision breath before I dedicate another month to refining the wording of the thread, if after that gap month I feel like the subject is still pertinent to me and greater world and will in fact enrich the lives of the membership here. After final wording, I let the thread sit in edit mode for two weeks reading it over every morning before finally publishing it. It's can be a tricky process in regards to timing as I only start threads on the 12th of a month. If you would like more details on "the process" just ask, I am happy to share. I just checked my analytics and my thread closure rate is currently at 32%.

 

[runscott]

I don't start many threads simply because I keep screwing up and forgetting the capitalization rules. The rule violation wrist slap is too painful. On the other hand, I have no problem avoiding religion and politics, but that's only because of past painful wrist slaps, so the moderators on other forums have made me serviceable for this forum.

What I don't get is the meaningless thread titles that are capitalized, so they survive. 'I Have a Problem' is good, but 'I have a problem with my dunhill' is bad. But I'm glad we don't have capitalization pandemonium.

 

[TheWhale13]

I'm personally quite happy with the way the moderators handle this place, and they are worthy praise for their hard work keeping this place civil.

I like how there can still be (heated) discussion without closing threads or bans, but also how seldom people cross the line.

So thank you Mods, for keeping this forum being great.

 

[jpmcwjr]

I don't start many threads simply because I keep screwing up and forgetting the capitalization rules. The rule violation wrist slap is too painful. On the other hand, I have no problem avoiding religion and politics, but that's only because of past painful wrist slaps, so the moderators on other forums have made me serviceable for this forum.

What I don't get is the meaningless thread titles that are capitalized, so they survive. 'I Have a Problem' is good, but 'I have a problem with my dunhill' is bad. But I'm glad we don't have capitalization pandemonium.

Since I seem to be the current chief editor of titles,— (Wow!!!), I will say it's a p.i.a.. Many have learned and cooperate, but too many can't be arsed to read, understand or abide by the guidelines.

Meaningless titles are not capitalized so they survive, but so the forum reads better, looks better. Cutting out completely unnecessary verbiage from titles does give me a tiny bit of satisfaction.

 

[mawnansmiff]

I fear some members either didn’t read my opening post through or they did read it but didn’t get the gist of what I was trying to get across. At least one member used the usual analogy of 'if you don’t like the TV channel then find another' which totally missed my point.

My main gripe was that I for one get disheartened when I start a thread which is moving along nicely but gets infected by some inconsiderate bumhole spouting a load of nonsense then the thread is closed where it would have made more sense to me to have someone have a word with the miscreant and have his offending post removed thus allowing the thread to continue and die the natural death that all threads eventually succumb to.

From the interesting input from the mods, Python & Kevin himself, it seems I would be asking too much from an already busy team. This I have to accept but please understand, it wasn’t just about me and the threads I start, it is more about all contributors as most at sometime or other have seen this happening and it just puts folk off.

Anyway, I'm glad I got this off my chest as it's been bugging me for a while & the last occasion was the tipping point. Another bonus is I didn't get booted!

Regards,

Jay.

 

[telescopes]

I fear some members either didn’t read my opening post through or they did read it but didn’t get the gist of what I was trying to get across. At least one member used the usual analogy of 'if you don’t like the TV channel then find another' which totally missed my point.

My main gripe was that I for one get disheartened when I start a thread which is moving along nicely but gets infected by some inconsiderate bumhole spouting a load of nonsense then the thread is closed where it would have made more sense to me to have someone have a word with the miscreant and have his offending post removed thus allowing the thread to continue and die the natural death that all threads eventually succumb to.

From the interesting input from the mods, Python & Kevin himself, it seems I would be asking too much from an already busy team. This I have to accept but please understand, it wasn’t just about me and the threads I start, it is more about all contributors as most at sometime or other have seen this happening and it just puts folk off.

Anyway, I'm glad I got this off my chest as it's been bugging me for a while & the last occasion was the tipping point. Another bonus is I didn't get booted!

Regards,

Jay.

Jay, your point was very clear and well taken. I think many a thread could be salvaged as well. Often, just when it is getting good, even when it has been derailed a bit, a small nudge could be provided to keep it alive. The cricket thread went off track fast, and for no reason. I wanted to talk about my experiences with people eating insects from my world travels. Insect protein is a necessary food product for billions of people. It may seem strange to people in the USA, but for so many others, insect protein is necessary for living a healthy life. Unfortunately, I was not able to state that in the other thread.

 

[runscott]

Since I seem to be the current chief editor of titles,— (Wow!!!), I will say it's a p.i.a.. Many have learned and cooperate, but too many can't be arsed to read, understand or abide by the guidelines.

Meaningless titles are not capitalized so they survive, but so the forum reads better, looks better. Cutting out completely unnecessary verbiage from titles does give me a tiny bit of satisfaction.

You might be reading something into behavior that isn't necessarily there - I always read the rules and guidelines of forums I join, and truly intend to follow them, but then when I post, I might not remember the rules that are different from those in other forums. I get the capitalization thing - I'm just not used to it. Now I think I post enough that I won't forget, and re-hashing this will help.

There was a history forum I used to participate in, where I violated a rule that was unique to their forum, and they actually gave me demerit points. I think it was that they didn't allow contractions in thread titles, but if not, it was something similar. If I had done another mistake of equal demerit value, it would have pushed me into a time-out situation. So I quit starting threads, as I knew it might happen again.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Worry not! And, to be clear, my post wasn't aimed at you.