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

From: Peter Davidson <P.Davidson_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:16:45 +0100
Message-ID: <D7171847AEFC6A4893D80C75E547E271100398_at_nmsmail02.nms2k.int>

Martin

I agree with all you say. The enjoyment of the majority of the list members should not be spoiled by the inappropriate behaviour of a few large egos. We are all seeking to benefit from a shared knowledge and love of meteorites.

Yet, it would seem unnecessarily dictatorial to seek to muzzle or eject one or two people. They do have a right to air their opinions, no matter how distasteful they may be. I can appreciate that given the volume of traffic on the list, that it would be a very onerous task to moderate the list, but if there was a moderator it might deter a few people form making the sort of vicious, derogatory remarks that seem to be appearing more and more frequently. After all, as we see in politics, once a politician gets the media's attention, they will seek at every turn to maintain themselves in the public's eye, no matter what they say. Starving them of the oxygen of publicity is better than outright censorship.

But you are right, Martin, we are all here for meteorites. Let's be grown-up about it.

Cheers

Peter Davidson
Curator of Minerals
 
National Museums Collection Centre
National Museums Scotland
242 West Granton Road
Edinburgh
EH5 1JA
Phone: +44 131 247 4283
p.davidson at nms.ac.uk
www.nms.ac.uk
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com [mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of Martin Altmann
Sent: 21 August 2009 14:46
To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Three Strikes and You're Out

Hi all, I don't know.

I read tons of postings, how horrible and how ugly this meteorite list is,
endless criticism and complaints.

Don't you see, what we all do have with this list?
Doesn't that never-ebbing well of top information outweigh by far the
permanent misbehaviour of three, four people?

If you find a dog dropping in front of your house, are you calling the
national guard? Will you move then and burn your house or will you ask to
eradicate all canines?
Take a shovel, it's annoying, I know, and remove it.

In my eyes it's more than exaggerate to put the whole list into question,
because a handful of people doesn't know how to behave or play the mentally
challenged ones.

Yes, I know. Simplest thing would be to remove the two or three notorious
ones and everything would be fine again. No warning wouldn't be necessary,
such characterless people like Steve Arnold Chicago are destroying the list
since years now,
and I'm sure, that Art was asked a hundred times to remove them,
but he decided to be a phantom and that is his decision, which we have to
accept.
You can't compare the meteorite list to a moderated forum. It is a mailing
list. And most liked it like it is or was. And all in all it worked fine.
To ask Art to moderate the list, that would be really to much.
It's great enough, that he set up this list and that he gives us a place to
discuss.

So let's stay well grounded
and talk rather about rocks from space.


My opinion, only.
Martin








-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von Galactic
Stone & Ironworks
Gesendet: Freitag, 21. August 2009 05:08
An: Walter Branch
Cc: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] Three Strikes and You're Out

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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Received on Mon 24 Aug 2009 09:16:45 AM PDT