[meteorite-list] Three Strikes and You're Out

From: Galactic Stone & Ironworks <meteoritemike_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 23:07:51 -0400
Message-ID: <e51421550908202007se694d19q29fe21d8338f3435_at_mail.gmail.com>

Hi Fred, Walter and List,

I second what Walter said. I always have a Cloudy Nights tab open in
my browser - it's my second home. The atmosphere there is the
standard by which I judge other forums, lists, and groups. That
family-friendly, on-topic atmosphere is maintained by a dedicated
staff in all time zones around the world - so it would be hard to
duplicate that success here on this particular list. Truth be told, I
would have been moderated on CN for some of the things I have said
here on this List in the past - something I am not proud of. I try
to behave here just as well as I do there - the only big difference is
that vendors are more tightly controlled on CN to maintain
impartiality in the world of astronomy equipment reviews - that site's
primary focus. Meteorite is but a small (but growing) subset of the
CN community. Cloudy Nights is responsible, in part, for guiding me
into the world of astronomy and then meteorites. I wonder how many
other CN members we have lurking on this List?

Best regards and clear skies,

MikeG

On 8/19/09, Walter Branch <waltbranch at bellsouth.net> wrote:
> Hello Fred,
>
> I can honestly say that Cloudy Nights is my number one favorite site on the
> web. It is a model for others to follow. The members, moderators and
> administrators members are a great bunch of folks and if you are an amateur
> astronomer, you really need to be a Cloudy Nights member.
>
> In fact, it is open in another window right now!
>
> -Walter Branch
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Fred Bieler" <fcb at astronomics.com>
> To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 2009 7:43 PM
> Subject: [meteorite-list] Three Strikes and You're Out
>
>
> One of the things my telescope business, Astronomics, allows me to do is own
> the astronomy oriented forum at www.cloudynights.com. This is the largest,
> and we believe the friendliest, astronomical forum site on the internet and
> the official world-wide forums of the 2009 International Year of Astronomy.
> We have over 33,000 registered users (some of whom are list members here).
> When I checked a few minutes ago, we had 368 registered users online in the
> middle of the day and a substantial number of anonymous users.
>
> Granted, Cloudy Nights has a lot of volunteer moderators who monitor the
> various fora full time and keep things civil, which is not something that
> can be done here because of the small size of the meteorite community, but
> there are a few things that might be worth considering.
>
> The basic Cloudy Nights Terms of Service are as follow:
> "Simply put, the following behavior is expected from users:
> * Play Nice
> * Share
> * Be Polite
> * Be Honest
> * Respect other members & the administrators and moderators who are working
> to keep this board a useful resource.
> Above all, do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
>
> If you want to see the full Cloudy Nights Terms of Service, here's a link:
> http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/233117/page
> /0/view/collapsed/sb/5/o/all/fpart/1.
>
> If a Cloudy Nights user violates the TOS, the moderators can give the user a
> warning strike and delete objectionable posts or portions of the post with
> the concurrence of the other moderators. Next violation, another warning and
> a second strike. Third strike, and it's like baseball, you're out (at least
> for a while to give you time to cool off).
>
> The moderators vote to give the user a three-day timeout (where the user
> can't post to the fora or reply to fora comments for three days). After a
> three-day timeout, continued violations of the TOS result in another timeout
> of three days or longer, while violations after multiple timeouts leading to
> bans up to and including one for life. The moderators and administrators
> invariably have extended discussions about the penalties out of view of the
> general users before deciding on any of these steps.
>
> While it is unlikely that this meteorite forum has enough members to allow
> it to become a fully moderated forum like Cloudy Nights, Art might find it
> worthwhile to consider applying the CN three strikes rule himself when it
> comes to the flame wars and other uncivil emails that sometimes seem to far
> outnumber the useful emails. When large numbers of list members complain
> about the flame wars and the other members' failure to play nice, and some
> leave the forum for good because all they find is post after post kvetching
> and beating a dead horse, it might be time for the owner to apply a little
> gentle pressure on the offending members in an effort to retain the members
> who are being offended, rather than let them drift away. I'd rather lose a
> few bad apples than have them put the entire orchard at risk.
>
> Fred Bieler
> Astronomics/Christophers, Ltd./Cloudy Nights
> www.astronomics.com
> 800.422.7876
>
>
>
> Fred Bieler
> Astronomics/Christophers, Ltd./Better View Desired
> www.astronomics.com
> 800.422.7876
>
>
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-- 
.........................................................
Michael Gilmer (Florida, USA)
Member of the Meteoritical Society.
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Received on Thu 20 Aug 2009 11:07:51 PM PDT