Should people bringing the board into disrepute be banned?

[Brosville]

by trying to institute a regime of edited posts, silencing alternative viewpoints, and generally trying to ruin the reputation of the board by instituting a censorious atmosphere?

 

[Brosville]

actually, I couldn't vote for that myself - everyone must have their voice!

 

[RoofTops]

I find the best course of action in circumstances like this is no action at all - call it apathy if you want but it also about not picking at sores. If someone has a go at me I simply don't respond. It is amazing how quickly the problem goes away.

In my limited experience of forums (yes, I know fora is the correct plural but it doesn't look right) no argument ever produces a winner and getting wound up can only be bad for the blood pressure.

Lean back with a glass of home made mead and a mince pie and enjoy life. If you want an argument watch the telly and see the politicians having a go at each other. There's never a winner there either.

 

[admin]

For anyone confused by this thread see This link

 

[rae]

Having been on a wide variety of forums....some thoughts.

1) Libellous posts have to be removed for fear of action. If someone claimed that the MD of Bayer fed on small children for breakfast, that would be libellous and should simply be removed. If some one said that they did not believe Bayer's claims about pesticides, that is merely opinion and stands or falls on the evidence supplied.

2) You can take a "hard" approach to censorship - just delete stuff. That always starts a blizzard of PMs and whinging from all parties. Sometimes it is necessary to keep the peace.

3) An alternative approach is to have a "sin bin" for threads - threads that have descended into a storm of rubbish get dumped in the bin, are still visible to all members (so everyone knows why a thread has been moved and can make their own opinion), then gets deleted after a week.

I find the "no advertising" implementation a bit of a pain, because sometimes you want to post a perfectly reasonable link to information that gets mangled. I can live with it though.

 

[Brosville]

have you noticed a particular foible of forums? - the one where people don't actually read the posts, but "skim" them, completely misunderstand the thrust of the post, and then proceed to comment on what they think (or choose) to suggest you said? - as an example, there are some people who will take your most reasonable post (most of which I agree with incidentally), and will take a tiny part - "the MD of Bayer fed on small children for breakfast" - and then proceed to "go off on one" suggesting that you've actually suggested that, and that you are therefore Beelzebub incarnate, a lying swine who should be horsewhipped, and extradited to the US (via Sweden) to face charges.......

 

[Vergilius]

The point of the original thread by Brosville (before it became an assortment of rants)was fairly reasonable.

Ben P

 

[fredbloggs]

Blimey??

Clearly the original post is aimed at the BBKA Forum?

For what it is worth, and speaking as an individual who has been "banned" from that particular arena, I feel empowered to make this comparison.

It is refreshing to see that Admin (or the moderators) do not operate in "stealth" mode? I have been amazed whilst just viewing the who's online that not only has gavin got no proper work to do today, but I can actually see what Admin is looking at ??

Open and honest communication is the key, Once again I am amazed to see the statement from Admin that banning is not a first option.

I am also gobsmacked to see that Admin intimates that is the members who own the forum ??? To those who have found this place (voluntary or otherwise) through experiencing the moderation style of the BBKA - described as the Stasi?) this is a wonderful demonstration of lowering the level of responsibility and correspondingly raising that of acccountability. (explanation if you would like it)

What was that show where the punch line was "you've all done very well"?

Best regards

FB

 

[Vergilius]

This is the kind of thing that goes on on that forum-

http://************************/forum/showthread.php?t=1157&page=3

Ben P

 

[Vergilius]

Sorry I forgot you couldn't link to other forums. It was just a funny rant about someone getting banned!

Ben P

 

[admin]

Thank you Fred,the only moderaters we have are our members.
I like to think the forum is self moderated as it keeps everything democratic.

I am shocked at how many members we have who were banned by the BBKA for being trouble makers but have been as good as gold on here when allowed to speak openly and give their point of view even if the majority dont agree with them.

Its not very often I have to step in and admin threads,its also good thing that I am accountable to all members in forum decisions.

The forum seems to be growing at a rapid pace and I put that down to the content that members are posting and also the way the forum is looked after by everyone.

I do block links to our competition and certain commercial websites so we dont leak page rank in the search engines but all you have to do is use tinyurl to bypass the filter.

 

[fredbloggs]

The BBKA website has just crashed due to the traffic generated trying to see who the rant was and what it is about? etc

 

[oliver90owner]

Ben,

The forum filter settings simply prevent that automatically. Nothing to stop you 'w r i t i n g' it out as a description (so we all know, but does not affect the web status), so just not a computer-readable link. Advertising done in this manner would soon be obvious, reported, and the advertiser binned.

Regards, RAB

 

[gavin]

I have been amazed whilst just viewing the who's online that not only has gavin got no proper work to do today, but I can actually see what Admin is looking at ??

LOL Fred!

This morning's lurking at home is coming to an end and I do have proper work to do this afternoon where I will be pushing back frontiers (and the bits of paper to go with them) ....

All the attention on Brosville isn't quite right. I got involved in a thread when HRP was actually suggesting burning down an office with the BBKA top brass within it. That boy need therapy. For his own good and for the good of the forum he shouldn't be freely posting here until he can learn to stay legal. There are a couple of other muck-rackers who lack Brosville's oh ... naivety ... and I don't know what their real motives are on here. Personally, if I was at the BBKA's top table I would be at least thinking about speaking to solicitors about Brosville and a couple of others of similar bent, and I would be speaking to the men in blue about an openly expressed desire to commit murder.

Fred - great to see you back on a beekeeping forum and I hope that both you and SWMBO are thriving.

G.

 

[Brosville]

Well, I'm personally aghast that the boys in blue haven't looked at certain organisations
Hells bells, I don't for a second presume that calls for violence and mayhem were meant literally, and to suggest that it's a matter for Mr Plod is hilarious!

 

[fredbloggs]

Blimey ii

".......the only moderaters we have are our members"


Ahhhh take a deep breath - smell the fresh air .

Off now to do something more meaningful and in line with a modern day soft southerner. it's goes like this:

Locate spade
find car
dig

Can't wait to get home and seriously upset Mrs Bloggs by "wasting more time on that computer of yours " ? Havn't heard that one for a couple of years

 

[Vergilius]

Okay,

It's not a link now. Type it into search bar without spaces.

http://www. britishbee. org.uk/forum/ show thread.php?t=1157

Pretty funny...

Ben P

 

[jimbeekeeper]

arh that cheeky home farm, I wonder where he is now?

TBH all of the last 48hrs goings on are very childish on both sides.

Simple answer is don’t, if you don’t like it either reply (I was going to use the word Adult, but many children are more mature), so either reply civilised or not at all!

No one forces you to reply.

PS IP address are easily faked / use proxy servers etc etc. Bans can easily be got round, which makes posting on the BBKA site possible! LMAO Uncle Roger.

 

[Hivemaker.]

arh that cheeky home farm, I wonder where he is now?



Perhaps he metamorphosized,like a bee.

 

[madasafish]

I just love this quote from the thread - linked to above..


"25-07-2008, 09:29 PM
Have also been informed what happened.
Full marks to the moderators of this forum who are doing a wonderful job in making this one of the most useful sites for beekeepers and beemanagers.
"


(referring to the BBKA forum....of course)

..it's as dead as a dodo just now.

EDIT
and another more recent BBKA thread (on pesticides etc ) has been closed as the members started calling each other names etc.