NOTHING will ever stop speculation, my friends.
looiecypher,
I agree it is very important that a) members see that staff IS taking action on certain things, and b) that members see HOW we are taking action.
This serves 2 purposes. 1) the members take comfort in knowing we are on top of things and not just letting all the problem children and trouble makers succeed in making everyone's life around them completely miserable, and 2) it educates members about what is and what is not acceptable conduct on this board.
For this reason, it is a general practice of mine to leave footprints INSIDE the offending post so that readers who may stumble across a thread and encounter the offending post will take note that staff has addressed the issue and how they dealt with it.
For example...
Quote:
Originally Posted by looiecypher
Hey St. Christopher, you're a Goddamn mother fucking, cock sucking piece of shit!!!
[disrespect to staff and insulting remarks are not permitted on this board-warning points issued]
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Any member who came across this post would conclude a number of things a) this board doesn't censor or hide controversial stuff from it's membership. We leave it there, in tact, for the members to see.
b) the footprint shows staff has been there and addressed the issue
c) the footprint educates the members on what type of conduct is not permitted and what action this type of conduct will bring about.
Now, we get alot of RTMs from members who encounter a vulgar post or one with profanity, or one that is just generally offensive in nature.....we DO NOT remove stuff like that from public view. If you've seen that happen on occasion, it's because we have staff here who have been accustomed to a different way of doing things from past staff positions, and we are trying to re-train them to a new philosophy of doing things.
The philosophy is this: We want our members to get behind our staff actions and support our decisions. If we remove the stuff that we are giving reprimands for, how could somebody come along and come to the conclusion that staff took appropriate action or made the right decision?? If all you see is: edited by staff and action taken.....but nothing else but a blank post or severely "chopped up" thread, then you are LEFT GUESSING. That's where the speculation you spoke of comes in....and before long, the members start saying to themselves, "if they removed these comments, what the hell else are they editing out???" It pretty much goes downhill from there.
The Disciplinary Action Thread you speak of from ASPD was a nifty idea and it served it's purpose for the most part...although i'm not so sure it was as useful a learning tool as it was a good form of public humiliation akin to
stocks or a
pillory. Some folks checked it daily....but just as in alot of other things, ECCIE has a bit of a different take on things. We do not want "disciplinary action" to be a primary focus around here.....not with our staff, and not with our members. It's a necessary evil, and one that we are committed to dealing with...but we just don't want to give it a whole lot of real estate, so to speak. You have probably already seen that since our staff personnel counts have been getting caught up with the recent surge in membership, we've been able to address matters as they come up far more promptly than before.
On a final note, some have asked over the past several weeks, 'does this board have rules, and where are they posted?' That's a damn good question. Many of the rules this board has enforced over the past year have been of the unwritten common sense sort that you would likely come across on any board. With that said, I believe that it's to everyone's benefit that we have some logical and reasonably flexible guidelines posted so that it's a level playing field and everyone, from our members to our staff, knows what we expect from each other. I've been working on those for some time now and will more than likely get something posted for the members around the ECCIE 1st Year birthday (3-16-10)
Stay tuned, and thanks to everyone for their interest and concern in making ECCIE the best damn place on the net.
St. C
warning and suspension list
