HTLAL might be gone

[Jar-Ptitsa]

I never received a warning on htlal. others didn't as well, but this was all long time before you were a mod.

I know that some people find this rule too restrictive. For example, many people enjoy personal attacks and flaming. Once upon a time Polydog (a very interesting language forum) provided much greater leeway in this regard. But as I understand it, the administrator later clamped down considerably, and the forum is now locked to the public and invitation-only.

On polydog, the admin admitted in an open post that he had many clones, which he made for attack the members of the forum, and that he enjoyed this. Everyone (nearly) left.

he locked it because he said it was spammed. but anyway, nobody want to visit polydog after the admin's deceitful and lying behaviour.

I didn't see personal attacks or flaming on polydog, or maybe they were deleted before I read them. The admin himself was the personal attacker there. and he told everyone this when he banned 7 members, 5 of whom were himself as clones.

[mick33]

I've been a member for almost 5 years, and I have seen many inspiring but 'difficult' members getting banned. That always annoyed me, in particular because I had no insight into the reasons, and what I could see on the forum rarely justified outright banning.

I think it becomes a question of balance, in other words "Are a majority of a certain person's posts insightful and inspirational or are there a large number of ad hominem rants? If the answer is that there are too many ad hominems then that person is more likely to get banned. In fact, quite a few of these "inspiring but 'difficult' members" were given many second chances, but kept causing problems.

The reason you didn't see much justification was because offensive posts were deleted by mods. I didn't and don't see that as a problem. But I do see moderation through fear as a problem that we probably shouldn't repeat here.

R.
==

Sometimes posts were edited too, and every time I saw the offensive posts I agreed that the person who wrote them should probably be banned.

[tangleweeds]

As mentioned elsewhere, I'm a forums addict, but I have a pretty low tolerance for incivility in discussions, off topic opinionizing, or stirring the pot for entertainment. Where that stuff prevails, I can't be out of there fast enough, with no interest in looking back. I come for intelligent, respectful discussion, period.

I've rarely had any difficulty feeding my forum addiction addiction with plenty of forums that are openly moderated to stay civil, on topic, and encouraging polite and intelligent discussion. All of these well moderated forums I've enjoyed have survived and gone on to cultivate a culture of civility that has endured for many years.. A couple examples off the top of my head are the forums at Piano World or Mandolin Cafe, which I've enjoyed for a quite number of years.

The tone of the last several pages of this discussion is just what starts me packing my bags to go. Life is too short to waste time on insults, complaints, and argumentation to promote a culture of further recreational argumentation.

[neofight78]

@tangleweeds spot on, thank you.

I would also add that those who are put off by a more flame festy style, usually quietly disappear without saying anything, or indeed fail to ever join.

[Takra jenai]

How a forum is moderated doesn't trouble me at all. It can be loose, it can be wild, it can be senseless.
It can be strict. No politics? No religion? OK.
No flame wars? I enjoy them. But it's OK. Let it be that way.
No jokes? It's tough. But it can be that way again.
No links? It's even tougher. But I'm not the ruler here. It's up to the admin.
They want to ban me for whatever reason? It's their right. I don't mind. I didn't create this forum.
I'm not intelligent enough? OK. I don't mind. Anyway, I'm intelligent enough, and nothing will change it.

Edit
I liked my own post. And I'm proud of it.

[Hrhenry]

Sometimes posts were edited too.

Actually, this brings up an idea for a mod/extension that could possibly be done here: Would it be possible to have an "Edited" feature here, much like on Facebook, which showed the edit history? Any time I've edited my own posts, it's been due to typos or including something spurious that I didn't intend to quote when replying, but I know of several instances where some others' posts were changed to bolster an argument.

An edit history might go a long way in keeping people a little more level-headed.

Just a thought.

R.
==

[Bakunin]

In general, if you want a forum with extremely loose rules about civility and appropriate behavior, you might have more luck with either Reddit (if they ever figure out what their policies are) or one of the chans. (Or on the sad remnants of Usenet. I miss the good old days before the Eternal September) But at least in the case of "classic" web forums, sooner or later, most of them seem to institute basic ground rules, or choose to become closed private communities, or choose to close the forum. For whatever reason, it's hard to find interesting "classic" web forums with extremely loose codes of conduct.

Personally, I know that we have a number of very interesting polyglots—people who speak lots of languages, who organize challenges, who always have really interesting things to say—who have a very low tolerance for incivility. If we relax the forum rules in this regard, we'll lose some of these people quickly. So allowing people to personally attack other people comes at a real price. It's simpler to have one set of rules for everyone.

Not sure if this was meant towards me or the other person you quoted, or more as a general remark. In any case, don't get me wrong. I'm in favor of strict moderation, and I think the moderation we have here at HTLAL is working well. I'm against relaxing the rules. But I would like to have more transparency.

The alternative to having some public oversight over something as important as banning of senior members is to delegate this completely to the moderators and trust them. But how can we make sure that the moderators act in the best interest of the community and according to the rules the community wants to see implemented if there is no access to specific cases? There needs to be some mechanism for us to review how moderation is carried out.

[Φιλόσοφος]

I know that some people find this rule too restrictive. For example, many people enjoy personal attacks and flaming. Once upon a time Polydog (a very interesting language forum) provided much greater leeway in this regard. But as I understand it, the administrator later clamped down considerably, and the forum is now locked to the public and invitation-only.

In general, if you want a forum with extremely loose rules about civility and appropriate behavior, you might have more luck with...

I don't recall ever suggesting "extremely loose rules about civility and appropriate behavior" or "personal attacks and flaming". On the contrary, I was careful to request that debate be allowed on the condition that it remain respectful. Rather, what was being discarded at the old forum was not proper behavior but simply disagreement. Anytime a polemic arose and competing viewpoints clashed, or whenever a discussion was considered to have strayed from a narrowly circumscribed topical range, it was promptly shut down in authoritarian manner, largely irrespectively of incivility. Thus the forum became a saccharine community of folks sharing commonplace views that advanced little the practice of language-learning. This is the fundamental reason why I believe people who do know something about this art left — studying 15-20 languages in a genuinely serious and substantial manner requires too great an expenditure of time and effort to waste precious minutes on commonsense platitudes.

Also, comparing the way the old forum was run with other, flourishing communities seems disingenuous, as clearly these policies didn't advance HTLAL at all, and instead turned it into a dying forum.

My excuses if what I write appears harsh, however this is how I feel. Certainly the last thing I'd wish is to impose my own preferences and expectations on a community that clearly has different goals and uses in mind. I just felt that another viewpoint should at least be given voice, if not actually heeded.

[PeterMollenburg]

What are we heading for? Maybe I don't really want to know.

If you want to see what we're headed for, have a peek at pretty much any Tumblr blog. Actually for your own sanity, don't.

Basically we'll have a board of SJWs sanitizing the forum of anything which could be remotely considered offensive to anyone, anywhere.

I'm all for keeping things civil. I wouldn't want a language learning forum to turn into a place for people to attack others based on their race or sexuality. But we've moved from trying to promote civility and respect to a culture of crybabies who are constantly looking for something to find offensive.

I do not understand this concept that people have an inherent right to go through their lives without being offended by something.

/rant off

I couldn't agree more. To me being offended is almost always seen as the fault of the person who said/wrote the "offensive" content. The possibility that the one who is offended could be at fault in terms of their reaction/interpretation is not entertained nearly enough. Instead we all tip-toe around trying not to offend anyone. The result is a culture of robots that must only express themselves in within a certain framework of expected prose. So now we have public relations that specialise in 'selling/dressing' public figures words in certain lights so they dare not say something that might offend some group. Marketing, manipulation and politics come to mind. Sell it to the sheep/robots. We are all in boxes. Make sure you don't act outside your box.., Neo, play along!

Edit

Exactly. Very many people were banned, but it seems few people knew or have noticed.

Plenty of people noticed. Some even spoke out, but I think most just kept quiet out of fear of getting banned themselves.

R.
==

Reminds me of society in general.

[Takra jenai]

For me a forum is useful if I can ask a technical question, usually about some learning materials, and get an answer with good links.
I'm not that much interested in 'intelligent' discussions. Whenever I want something intelligent to read I grab a book by an intelligent author. I doubt they ever waste their time on forums.