Barry Stuart Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 Obnoxious comments generally stem from the fact that users are anonymous. They feel like they can say what they want without consequence because they think they are protected by anonymity. Having dealt with some of these problems myself this week, I can tell you that legally anonymity does not exist. Dealing with harassment, slander and protection orders can be attained very easily. thehubSA will have to either by choice or court order cooperate with police investigators- exposing the alleged perpetrator and all electronic correspondence, account information, IPs etc. These offenses are dealt with just as severely as real life/ non-virtual offenses. A recommendation would be to create user transparency by removing pseudonyms and having thehubsa enforce user transparency. Terms and conditions should be setup that violation of not using your real name, will result in current and future banning from the site. Getting people to take responsibility for what they say is the only way to effectively deal with these problems. Transparency generates its own self governing rules of conduct. Without that, constant over site and enforcement will always have leaks and require far more constant attention. If people are really concerned about remaining anonymous for some reason, then a suggestion is that if you want to make a comment in a post, it can only be recorded with a real name. Then if you have a genuine concern and want to create a post, it will keep you anonymous. Anonymous comments (and anonymous by virtue of pseudonym) within posts are where the problems are. If you have something of value to say, criticism or rant there is no reason why a person needs to hide behind an avatar. Honesty inspires honesty. Likewise dishonesty spirals towards more dishonesty.It's a nice sentiment and would alleviate a lot of problems but it's totally unenforceable.
JoeyK Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 I know mods are keeping an eye on this, so I will voice my 2c regarding any changes, so here goes: Some believe that certain topics will go down south quickly in the rant and rave section. I disagree. I remember a thread where someone bought a silverback scalera frame from a hubber, but said hubber did not ship after payment was made. Buyer called him out after he could not reach him on phone anymore. A lot of hubbers got involved, but the Seller joined and apologized. That did not go south as a lot anticipated. Also, many a time we heard one side of the story, then the seller or buyer offered their side and a different story came to light where the thread just went quiet. Please keep that in mind when you guys are contemplating change. Cheers
ChUkKy Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 I think whats missing is my valuable contribution to the threads, I have been very scarce the past few months. I will post more.
Matt Posted January 23, 2015 Author Posted January 23, 2015 The key focus here is application and enforcement of the rules - that is what has been severely lacking. Rule changes will not be severe, but will better support proper enforcement. This topic has been closed. Let's keep focus on moving forward.As mentioned in the initial post, please do email me if you have any comments or suggestions in response -> matt@thehubsa.co.za forkie 1
GoLefty!! Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 Matt, I think you should consider first reviewing every thread that gets started on theHUBSA. No thread goes through with moderator approval. This will cut down on duplicate threads and weed out the trash before it starts a veld fire Lone_Ranger and Wyatt Earp 2
Matt Posted January 23, 2015 Author Posted January 23, 2015 Update posted in the article regarding some interim steps and the updated rules & guidelines: https://www.bikehub.co.za/features/_/articles/the-hubs-forums-the-way-forward-r1932 Spank 1
Guest DieBees Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 Rules are good. Stricter enforcement of it is needed. I have a specific problem when it comes to religion and would like to see specific enforcement about this. Religion musy be kept off thehub! TALUS and coop 2
scotty Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 Rules are good. Stricter enforcement of it is needed. I have a specific problem when it comes to religion and would like to see specific enforcement about this. Religion musy be kept off thehub!Where do you draw the line, does this include no thread or commenting on incidents where some nut job/s commit murder in name of religion. VicanZA and Captain Fastbastard Mayhem 2
Captain Fastbastard Mayhem Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 Precisely. Religious ideals are NOT sacred. They are beliefs, nothing more. Nothing less. If someone feels as if they need to comment on a certain aspect of a religion, so be it. Look at how that atheism thread continued. Must have been the longest coherent and informative thread to date,where a multitude of different beliefs, ideals and opinions were discussed and hashed out with a real desire to understand the other viewpoint. More was learnt about tolerance there than on ANY other thread in the history of the hub, imo. Yes, some people decided to be offended, and some people overstepped. But to sideline such an ingrained aspect of human life borders on stupidity. LazyTrailRider, Thor Buttox and NixM 3
Warthog Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 M2CW. I'm very new here. Member on few other forums too, bit what really caught me here is the shere nastiness, ugliness and downgrading nature of some of the comments on some forums- and those mostly come from "senior" hubbers- guys with plenty posts... I normally check the forum once daily, and past few days I wondered couple times do I want to be here- yeah I know I'm only one ole, and new, and you don't really need me, but it's lekker to be between people with the same interests and passions as me- that's why we join forums after all. But it's not lekker to have to sift through some seriously obnoxious, downgrading, and completely unnecessary comments that adds absolutely zero to the anything to try to get to the bottom of a thread. My late father used to say "if you don't have anything constructive to say in a conversation, silence means a lot more than any words". PietSnot, PhdotD and deanbean 3
Matchstix Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 I am a bit concerned over point number 3It gives me the feeling like the state protection of information bill.No being able to voice something like this on a thread will also protect the seller or buyer from. The rest of the forum. No one will know if it is a bad seller for example unless some else tries to buy from the person.If only input is given from involved parties it's a he said she said argument. I do understand why the direction is chosen.But there should be done more in regards with people selling as well. VicanZA 1
Hairy Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 Also not too excited by point no3. Surely if you exercise tthe pb system of below board comments being minimised and only visible if a member intentionally clicks to open them. I find shipping all the below the board comments on pb, and I an sure most do to. This just means a useless comment becomes useless and does not derail a constructive thread.
Hairy Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 Dammed predictive text. ...shipping = skipping and the poor grammar
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