so, I had a post removed today. I'm really trying to keep an open mind, and good humor about it, but I guess for me, the removal is just way over the top, and sucks the life out of a community.

in response to joemikeb's post about his troubles with his Lightscribe drive:



I replied, "French Toast?"

now I know this reply wasn't on-topic, and perhaps wasn't even funny, but I thought it might draw a chuckle or two, and certainly wasn't a question about something totally unrelated, and was something that anyone might say in normal conversation.

here is the reasoning given for the removal:


too bad that an "outsider" won't find that we enjoy ourselves here while we solve problems. and ironically, I spent quite a bit of time searching for a solution to joe's problem, but didn't find anything, so I didn't post, but that's why I was in the topic in the first place.

I'm going to go put on a sweater, because it's feeling a bit colder in here...

French sweater?

How can you feel cold? Right now, it's like a club house in here. Friends Reunited. Warm and chummy. I think the moderators are worried that the tone of FTM will become less a tech forum and more a chat room. I think that's why PChaterosx is getting such a hard time, but at least she confines her chat to the Lounge.

I like to have fun, too, but I'm willing to play along by the rules if it helps this place gain a wider audience – a participating audience.

- Boring Old Phart

I hear you roger.

Huh?

Here's an example of a silly remark in a troubleshooting serious thread which not only doesn't detract from the purpose of the thread, but actually adds personality to it.

What is extremely frustrating to the other moderators is when someone replies to such a remark with a gratuitous post, i.e. a post whose only purpose is to continue the silliness. Like left-turners continuing through the intersection after the light's turned red, multiple posters will often follow up with multiple additional silly remarks, on the theory that "he did it, so I can too."

This is unfair:

• to the original poster.
• to other serious participants in the thread, whose contributions may get lost amidst the revelry.
• to new posters who may feel uncomfortable with the clubbish atmosphere that pervades such threads and therefore be intimidated about posting at all.
• to members who make a point of keeping up with threads of interest and find that a bunch of new posts in a troubleshooting thread may turn out not to indicate additional relevant content after all.
• to future readers who search for threads dealing with an issue they're experiencing, only to have to wade through the silliness in order to (hopefully) not miss any of the relevant content.

And, lo and behold! In the course of the time it took me to compose this reply, the thread I linked to devolved into a discussion of rutabagas.

Yes, the thread in question is in the Lounge, where "anything goes," but the phenomenon can be found in numerous troubleshooting threads as well.

Yes, you've just listed many of the reasons why it is unfair to bury serious threads in Lounge. In Lounge:

• Anything goes. There's no expectation that a serious thread will remain serious.
• Anything goes. There's no expectation that a thread will even begin serious. Future readers have no reason to look there.
• All topics get jumbled up. Even if I could somehow filter out all the silly stuff, there would be threads about vmware/bootcamp/windows/office, none of which interest me in the slightest, threads about unix/terminal/xcode/development, which fascinate me but probably bore others, threads about printers/peripherals, about applications, about tiger/leopard/snowleopard, each with its own following but all lumped together in Lounge.

I don't think trouble-shooting/non-trouble-shooting should be the dividing line. The proper division is between serious/silly, with the serious side broken down into multiple forums by topic, and Lounge for the silly stuff.


Dare I hope that this means the mods are coming around to the same opinion?

roger,

As a moderator's action in removing a post from you continues to be an important topic at FTM, I want to publically acknowledge that I am the moderator who removed the "French Toast? " entry in a troubleshooting forum and topic.

As you posted only the beginning portions of my email to you for public review and discussion,

I provide the concluding section of that message. As the full text was not published to all members reading this thread, I want to be as complete and transparent as possible as one of your staff members.

hi dianne,

thanks for responding. I had left out that paragraph in order to just focus on the issue, not the people involved, though I now see that I could have included it without any reference to you, or any other moderator.

thank you for the work you continue to do here at FTM.

As a person working in science that may be boring, complex and too technical, I do appreciate jokes and have never heard a good talk without a joke or two. Jokes are not necessary but they enlighten our lives and help us to relax. Removing a post with a completely innocent joke is highly unusual and, frankly, an overzealous action, IMHO. Roger's post did not detract from the main topic and may have shown to the new "shy" members that the atmosphere here is not as at a college exam where nothing extraneous is allowed and penalties are lurking from every corner. Being too harsh or too much sticking to the "rules" may actually detract new posters from being here. They would see that the mods are pretty stringent when it comes to the content and would be afraid to post. In this case, a simple reminder to stick to the troubleshooting would have sufficed. With all due respect to Dianne, I think it was an overreaction. People have already expressed their displeasure here about the Mods being a police force and, although I completely resent their language and allusions, there is something to think about in general. Besides, I don't recall any such problems/actions in the old forums. If the language is not offensive and the poster is not trying to hijack the thread or seriously detract from its course, no removal of the posts should be taking place.
This is a personal opinion but let us not be upset but rather discuss this issue maybe in more detail and elaborate some rules that would suit the common sense.

> People have already expressed their displeasure here about the Mods being a police force [....] I don't recall any such problems/actions in the old forums.

And therein, I think, lies the problem, Alex...

FTM was envisioned as a "soft landing" for we former MFIFers, Mods included; if you recall, the discussion about whether to invest in UBB.Threads settled on the familiarity aspect as a determining factor.

But the landing has been anything but soft, the territory anything but familiar.

Rather than using the scenario we left as a starting point and progressing from there with thoughtful discussion, the "M Squad" (*) has gone arbitrary on us to a large degree.

And the part I find most bothersome is that we have been unaware of many changed and new rules and policies before we've tripped over them, and that is not, in the least, either welcoming, friendly, or, more specifically, in keeping with the reasons we migrated here!

(*) 1950s TV detective show starring Lee Marvin as Lt. Frank Ballinger

Nailed it!

I am not sure I fully understand what you are saying, but I would hope for the new place being better than the old one. Hopes, shmopes. But I am still optimistic. We all strive for the same thing here and discuss things in the open. If the world has no democracy, we should at least try to install something like that here. It was a good start and we should not spoil it! And the rules can always be changed slightly. It is nothing like ten commandments.

As opposed to the (late 60s - early 70s) series called "Mod Squad" which was somewhat campy/corny in its style (and obviously the word "Mod" would have been the perfect pun in this case), the M in "M Squad" stood for... murder.

Was that the intent?

I never knew the "M" stood for murder (...never even saw the show, to be perfectly honest); I've referred to the "Mod Squad" in the past, but I found the "tough cop" analogy more appropriate than the pun in this instance.

> And the rules can always be changed slightly. It is nothing like ten commandments.

Precisely how do you mean that?