Doesn’t sound like conforming, does it? See, you don’t want conformity and you got your wish.
I think the moderation kind of sucks, but I just try to do my best to make things better and enjoy my time.
I’ll sound like a broken record to the mods (since they see this in the hidden forum), but this is the section of the rules I think we are lacking most:
(stolen from www.phpBB.com)
[quote][ul]
Policing
[li]1. phpBB operates a three strike policy. Users will be warned a maximum of three times for any and all offences in a three month period. If the need arises for a fourth warning a temporary ban will be put in place of between 1 to 7 days.
[/li]
[li]2. Arguing with team members after having received a warning will lead to an immediate additional warning. Should this exceed three strikes a temporary ban will be put in place as above.
[/li]
[li]3. Users who feel they have been unfairly warned are welcome to contact the relevant team leader, e.g. if warned by a moderator you should contact the Moderator team leader. If they feel you were treated badly they remove a warning. If you feel their decision is also unfair you may contact a Group member, primarily SHS` or theFinn. Their decision is final. Contacting group members over warning matters should be done so as a very last resort … group members do not want to be bothered unless vital.
[/li]
[li]4. Any attempt to circumvent a temporary ban will lead to that ban being made permanent. Circumvention includes re-registering under a non-banned username, changing IP addresses to evade an IP ban, registering a new email account of evade an email ban. Circumvention includes posting as an anonymous user.
[/li]
[li]5. An exception to the three strike rule applies when users contact team members personally (via any method) and post insulting, indecent or vulgar material. Such users may be subject to an immediate permanent ban.
[/li]
[li]6. [color=red]Permanent bans are a last resort[/color] and thought is given before implementing them. While phpBB may consider lifting permanent bans from time to time this is a rare occurence.[/li][/ul][/quote]
That last section in red is what I want the most. Our permanent bans as they are now seem far from a last resort. They’re pretty much our only resort. I think a warning system would be nice as well.
I think our frequency of bannings is far too high and shows a lack of a good system.
miltownkid has spoken
[quote=“Durins Bane”][quote=“Yellow Cartman”]
Well, you’ve already got one Mod agreeing you have legitimate points. Another mod trying to refute yours.
[/quote]
Doesn’t sound like conforming, does it? See, you don’t want conformity and you got your wish.[/quote]
Not exactly. The Mod while acknowledging Dead Wizard had a few legitimate points proceeded to then attack his posts’ style, rather than the substance. A typical and all too frequent type of response. The long term effect of ad hominem posts is pretty obvious.
Great suggestion Miltownkid. 
Good for you, YC, for sticking to your guns. :bravo:
Good for you DB, for showing how personal biases do not always guide mod votes. :bravo:
Is it just me, or are the last dozen or so posts just the kind of thing that was needed? Get some of this out in the open, and listen to unpopular views.
[edit: Why do I feel like that Al Franken character now? I’m smart enough and doggone it, I like myself. A hug-circle of one?]
He/she/it was posting hateful racist messages in the forum and or in PMs to one/several mods.
That sort of behavior is prohibited. And if such behavior is exhibited by one who has recently been banned, there isn’t a whole lotta tolerance nor inclination to give a benefit of the doubt.
There are few people who post here who are more in favor of free speech than am I. Personally, I don’t even think we should ban racist speech, unless the same is also hateful.
I’ve been banned from a number of different sites. Forumosa ain’t perfect, from my perspective. However, it is better, IMO, than most sites of a similar nature.
You may see my post way YC, but I respectfully disagree.
You are correct that I found the tone of Dead Wizard
Thanks Hobbes for the usual thoughtful posting. I think people put too much emphasis on the style vs. substance… and on the wrong side. If one knows that the style is XYZ, it becomes transparent and one should merely focus on the substance of the post. But that takes people to actually engage brains to figure out what exactly is being said. Too many people have itchy trigger fingers on their half-cocked flamethrowers. I don’t think that hyperbole or exaggerations are fatal mistakes that detract from the poster’s point for writing. Those are stylistic differences that should be tolerated.
Dead Wizard’s point about Ghetto was made for the wrong reasons but was made correctly. The banning of Ghetto is not sanctioned by any of the rules. Banning is a process and the process doesn’t take 25 mins. That ban was most likely done by the Admin due to the speed. Which raises of course a whole host of other issues. Meanwhile, I’ll just point to miltownkid’s post.
In any event, that’s neither here nor there. So far, no one has addressed his legitimate concerns and points but merely talked about his style and approach. Which is of course ad hominem, and which is my point.
Haha!
People are not banned for being racists. They need to also illustrate that their racism is hateful. I don’t think anyone has been banned for being insensitive. I recently proposed a ban on a poster for making derogatory remarks regarding the mentally retarded and that proposal was voted down. So, I think its incorrect to state that people are banned for making insensitive comments/remarks.
Are they hateful?
What is wrong with lobbing insults at a particular group of people who exhibit a particular observable behavior?
I don’t see why anyone should be prohibited from feeling any way about any group of people or any individual. And so long as their comments re the same are not hateful, I see no reason to prohibit such comments. Naturally, we prohibit the use of certain words if the same are used in a hateful manner.
Why and how do they cross the line? Where is this line?
So what? Its true that incestual relations can produce mentally challenged offspring. Why should people be prohibitted from speculating that such inbreeding might be a cause of certain behaviors of a group of people? You are free to rebut or refute such speculation. If possible, you can even demonstrate why such speculation is stupid.
What are the chances that anyone here is white or yellow or black or western or eastern or male or female or gay or heterosexual? How many threads exist in which any of these groups of people are criticized for one thing or another?
That’s ridiculous, IMO.
I don’t always agree with Maoman and there have been times where I have been extremely critical of his management of this site. Others too have been harsh critics of Moaman’s administration. Yet, none of us has been sacked. The fact is, this site is far more liberal and willing to listen to criticism than a good many other sites. Most sites are run by an administration that is un-names and which exercises authority and discretion at will and without any regard to what any posters feels. Comparing the administration of this site with the iron-fisted rule of Maozidong is ludicrous, IMO.
It is more difficult than you might imagine to achieve a high level of consistency in the application of the Rules. I agree and have argued for greater consistency of enforcement. However, the moderators all have different opinions and biases and values… this makes it virtually impossible to enforce every application of the Rules exactly the same.
What is the alternative? Moaman could drop all of us mods and simply enforce the Rules per his sole discretion. I like Moaman, but, I frequently vote against his proposals in the banning chamber… thus, I wouldn’t want him making all the decisions on his own. And he accepts our decision when we all tell him he’s way off base for proposing a ban. Try that at other sites and see how far you get.
Things are not always what they appear to be, are they?
That could well be more a function of coincidence.
Go into the IP forum and you will see there is a grat deal of debate and a great deal of disagreement among posters and even mods.
People are not banned for maintaining opposing viewpoints. They are banned for violations of the Rules. Now, does that mean that in every instance every mod and every administrator is correct in his/her interpretation and or interpretation od a Rule? Of course not. However, I believe that no poster has been banned due to his/her views, no matter how unpopular the same may be.
Always seem to be? Things are not always what they may appear to be.
Well, I can understand your frustration re this point. I argued against the ban of ac_dropout because I disagreed with how the Rule against trolling was interpreted and applied with respect to him. But, that was not the only Rule violation on which the proposal to ban him was based. I don’t remember it all now, but there was an accumulative effect that his alleged violations had on a number of mods who voted to ban him.
You win some, you lose some. Its not like we were voting on whether or not to send him to the gas chamber.
Or just the way you see it.
I’m gonna have another beer.
Majority viewpoint? WTF is that?
He was not banned for posting statistics.
He was banned for posting and or PMing a mod with hateful racist speech.
Look, we do not leave the really offensive stuff (such as hateful racist speech) on the public fora. What would be the sense in doing that?
Tigerman, mass shouts-out to you! :bravo: My brother is mentally retarded and I constantly hear PC (feminist, anti-racist, etc) fux* using the SLUR “retarded” and thinking it’s funny or ok or whatever. It’s really a double bind because most other groups can explain about why they shouldn’t be called “bitches” or “wops” or whatever, but for a lot of retarded folks, I think this is often more than they can handle. So they often suffer in silence.
I wish everyone who thought it was funny to make fun of the mentally retarded could spend a day with my brother.
I remember what D went through in school (hazing, teasing, being stolen from, cheated, etc) for being retarded and I want to kick the shit out of anyone who uses the word in a negative way. He at least has the social skills not to degrade a whole group of people for something which is no choice of their own and means nothing in evaluating a person’s worth. That sonuvabitch (my bro) works three times as hard as I have ever had to, and never gets anything but shit from most people. Still one of the nicest guys you’d ever wanna meet. Works full time, holding down his current job longer than I ever have. Can talk NFL and NASCAR with the best of them. Trusts everyone, can’t read and gets shit on constantly.
OK, I’ve definitly started to like you. Anyway, you have my respect, even though some of your other politics are all buggered. :beatnik:
*This is probably the main reason I try to use PC language myself, is because I’ve seen the pain name calling can cause when a kid can’t figure out why everybody hates him just for how he was made.
With all due respect, there has been one Mod who has been sacked.
I don’t always agree with Maoman either but he lets us speak freely and he listens to what we have to say. That’s the way to do it.
If you take close look at the team of moderators here you can see that they are a pretty diverse bunch. There are some liberals, some conservatives, and I suspect an anarchist or two in the group. They come from different backrounds and specialize in different things. I think this diversity of perceptions on how things should be is a good thing.
Could you grab one for me while you’re up?
I just hope that Dead Wizard feels comfortable around here to stay after reading this discussion and I would be happy to answer any questions or concerns he, or anybody else might have.
I also think Dead Wizard’s moniker is really cool, though as the resident magic-user in my gaming group his name is a bit unsettling. 
I even have a picture that Dead Wizard might like, though technically it is an Undead Wizard.
pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/minesofmo … pg&.src=ph
[quote=“Tigerman”]Yet, none of us has been sacked.
[/quote]
Yes, but unless my memory fails me (and it could) he was sacked not for disagreeing on the issue of whether or not to ban a particular poster, but for overall differences in philosophy. I have a great deal of respect for that Mod, and he has been very good about being “sacked”.
[quote=“Dead Wizard”]The “rules” and the “moderators” who enforce them are a joke.
All this BS about being PC and banning people for expressing racist/insensitive viewpoints is nothing but a sham. God, do you mods even READ some of the posts here?! In case you haven’t realized that the most racist/bigoted posts are ones directed towards Taiwanese and Mainlanders. In the Open forum there is a post titled something like “How do you feel about Koreans”. Call me stupid, but considering the overwhelming negative opinions towards Koreans here, I don’t see how this thread can be anything else besides an open invitation to lob insults towards them. It’s like posting in a Neo-Nazis forum a post titled “How do you feel about Jews?” or “How do you feel about N*****s?” in a white supremist forum. Sure enough, the Korean post is filled with nothing but insults and name calling, some of which are particularly venomous that I would consider crossing the line. There is a subtle hint implied in the posts that one source of Korea’s problems stems from the fact that they have a very limited pool of surnames (mostly Kims and Parks). The following replies using words such as “incest” and “inbreeding” really do not leave much to the imagination. Of course, there is little doubt in my mind that this thread will continue to thrive with little or no moderation because what are the chances that anyone here is Korean?
And that last question really is my main beef with the moderators. I love how the mods are always quick to cite the rules, waving it at our faces just like Mao’s little red book. The reference to Mao is more than just tongue-in-cheek; it’s an apt comparison to how the moderators run this board (is it REALLY a coincidence that the chief mod’s moniker is “Maoman”???). The rules themselves are fine, IF they were enforced with any kind of consistency. Unfortunately, they are not. Rather there seems to be some sort of overwhelming bias to only ban members who frequently express “unpopular” opinions. If you look at people who are banned they are the ones who express unpopular opinions that upset the majority of the members on this forum (Westerners, English teachers, Pro-Green/Independance). How come the members that get banned always seem to be the ones who express one or more of these beliefs: something to the effect that “English teachers are losers”, or “Westerners dating Oriential woman are losers”, or “Taiwan should unify with China/Lian Chan is god”? Of course, the official reason cited for the banning will never be because of this; the reason inevitable will be because of some random post flagged as “offensive/racist/bigoted/etc.” which any poster who posts with any regularity is bound to have, or better yet, just ban them for “trolling” (like anyone with a unpopular viewpoint is automatically a troll). Now mods go dig a hole, bury your head in it and deny it all you want if it’ll make you feel better, but this, unfortunately, is the sad truth (or just the way I see it).
PS: I’ll probably get banned for posting this (or this post will just get deleted), but I don’t really care. Pity, I use to like browsing this forum, but now it just panders to the majority viewpoint. Same old members, posting the same old ideas on the same old subjects. Yawn.
Out of curiosity, why was Ghetto banned? It was actually refreshing to see someone quote census statistics to support their views, in a topic such as “Western Men, Taiwanese Women”, instead of just saying “Well from my experience in Cali…” or some other lame-ass anecdotal experience.[/quote]
Yes, yes, and yes!
As a long time lurker and new sort-of contributer I must agree with this Wizard.
The moderation here is highly subjective. There are even mods that contribute heavily in the areas that they moderate. How can anyone claim to be so unbiased that they can referee a game while wearing one team’s jersy?
This and the overall “boy’s club” atmosphere is what puts many lurkers off. We tend to read posts like we rubber-neck at a traffic accident. And of course any lurker who dares crawl out from the cracks to suggest how this place could become an actual online community for expats in Taiwan is suddenly told to love it or leave it!
The rules are too complicated and there are too many loopholes. This is self evident, one only needs to word-count them. The rules are also subjectively enforced. The Korean thread is a good example. There is also an underlying acceptance of sexist language, as evidenced by the actual need for a women only section. Doesn’t this in itself tell people that this place is unwelcoming to half the expat population? Yes most people here are male but even some males don’t like to read about T&A everywhere they look.
PC in the extreme. Yes, but PC in the white American male version only.
Since I’ve already emerged from my crack, I’ll contrbute this:
-
Make the rules in point form, short points and few of them. People will actually read them then.
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Have a banned user thread that lists the user, the offending post, and the rule borken. (The secrecy of bannings is utterly stupid, and heavily contributes to the boy’s club feeling).
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Ban each and every user who breaks a rule. Why have rules otherwise?
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Moderators should moderate the sections that they care -least- about.
That’s all from me, now have a nice day.
3.
We are aware of this issue and we are constantly trying to reduce subjectivity.
Nobody claims to be unbiased. Just objective, and hopefully fair.
This place is an actual on-line community for expats in Taiwan. However, it cannot be everything to everyone, no?
To a degree, true. To another degree, false.
How so?
That isn’t the reason, AFAIK, for the women’s forum.
There are many women members here that participate in the public fora, and they even start and participate in threads regarding men.
Well, what do you suggest?
OK…
There is a short form of the Rules already.
We plan to have a list of banned members and a cite of the Rule/s broken. There really isn’t any need to show the offending post/s.
If we did that there would be nobody here. The Rules provide guidance for posters and Mods alike, and also justification when a ban is proposed/executed.
Why?
Thanks. You have a nice day, too. 
[quote]The “rules” and the “moderators” who enforce them are a joke…
[/quote]
This post seems like a huge overreaction.
I’d like to remind people of a few points that regularly get missed:
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The truly offensive posts get removed. We don’t ban people for being ‘unpopular’. You often don’t see the reasons that we ban people.
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If you think some thread such the ‘Koreans’ thread is offensive, PM us. Some of us only log on once a day (less sometimes). We do miss stuff. I didn’t see that thread until today.
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Yes we are inconsistent. It’s hard to avoid. Noone reads all the posts on Forumosa anymroe. It’s impossible to know what all the other moderators are doing. The ‘complicated’ rules that some people complain about are an effort to help the moderators be consistent.
Besides these points, I think the idea that we ban people for having unpopular viewpoints is just rubbish (unless by ‘unpopular viewpoints’ you perhaps mean things like Aryan supremacy, anti-semitism, or gay-bashing).
And YC, the style is important. An offensive and insulting style is not acceptable.
Brian
It can’t be everything to everybody. Correct. How could I disagree with that? However, it could be better. Right now, it’s a subcommunity of expats that is made up mainly of American males, which is a minority of the expats in Taiwan. Dispute this if you like, give me examples of female users from the UK, but the overall demographic is pretty obvious, I think.
As far as showing offending posts, this would give users a chance to see how moderators interpret the rules. I’m no laywer, but short, clear rules would act as laws just as citing offending posts with bans would act as precidents. After 10-20 bans people would know what’s up. Oh, so I can’t call someone a $#%. Currently, there are nothing but rumors about who did what. Did they all get send off to re-education camps or something?
So why have rules? No one would be here? That’s an extremely crappy excuse. Maybe you have very low expectations of the users, but I’m sure after 2 or 3 bannings even the most excitable users would follow the rules just to avoid the trouble of re-registering.
Let me ask, what makes this site? The server? The admins? The mods? The php code? No. Take away any of those things and the site (or a similar one) would eventually come back. The site is the users who spend their own time typing reams of information to help each other out. The mods and admins owe the users transparency and fairness.
Look, I know that my advice goes against the direction this site is headed, but I didn’t just make that stuff up. There happens to be a very content-rich, troll-free forum on the Internet. They have concise rules that are enforced without mercy. Idiots get banned without delay and without some kangaroo court, contributers get rewarded by the absence of idiots. And the BS level is so low that people pay to join it.
This isn’t a site of only American males. In fact, I’d go as far as to guess that Americans are a minority on this site. I’m not American and a lot of the regulars here are not also, not that there is anything wrong with Americans anyway. Males may be a majority here; but males tend to make up the majority of the expat population as well, so that will be reflected in the make-up of regular users on this site. Again, nothing wrong with males anyway.
I guess I disagree with the whiners. There is very little wrong with this site and a lot right about it. I also have never seen a site that does as much navel-gazing and puts as much effort into making their site an inclusive community as this one. If you’re anywhere close to Taipei, try to make it out for a happy hour sometime. You’ll find, as I have, that people associated with this site go out of their way to make you feel included. Are the mods and admin on this site perfect? No. But they sure try hard. Cut them a little slack.
I’d be interested in taking a look - do you have some links?
Thanks for your comments by the way - we’re not perfect by a long shot, but our intentions are good, and we are improving, I think. At least that’s what the numbers are telling us. I’ve recently been persuaded that a warning system (to supplement the banning system) would be good for the boards, and would lead to fewer bannings. I’m exploring ways to implement this that wouldn’t suck up even more moderator/administrator time. Stay tuned on that one.
I read all of the posts made on Feedback, and even though I don’t always respond (time constraints), I always consider the points being made. And nobody has ever been banned for having a dissenting point of view - it’s always been the way a view is expressed that is considered, not the message itself.
Sounds like he’s talking about the Something Awful forums, which you have to pay US$10 per year to join. The content level is generally pretty spectacular, but it’s playing to an entirely different audience and an entirely different role to Forumosa. If this place tried to enact the same system SA runs - ie if you fuck with us, you get banned, no ifs, ands, or buts - there’d be hell to pay.
[quote=“Bu Lai En”]
And YC, the style is important. An offensive and insulting style is not acceptable.
Brian[/quote]
The problem with saying this Bu is that this would instantly mark half the posts on these forums as suspect and worthy of pruning or other moderator action. Already, how much effort has gone into posting, reading, replying to this “style and tone” problem? A lot. What has come of it? The fact that there is no consistent action on these forums (due to the inherent subjectivity of the “job”) means that crying about “stylistic problems” is meaningless. It’s a truism that does not help anyone solve the problem(s).
The whole point of the matter is not how Dead Wizard raised the issue. The whole point is that he raised the issue(s) at all for discussion. That people would rather fault his style of raising the issue instead of dealing with the issues he raised is an ad hominem attack. We have enough of that in these forums.