How can we promote even better behaviour on Askaboutmoney?

Brendan Burgess

Brendan Burgess

Founder
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We have lost two very good posters recently because they felt that they were personally attacked by other posters. The mods remove these personal attacks in the vast majority of cases. But in these two incidents while the offending comments were OTT, they were responses to insulting comments by the offended posters.


If I call you an idiot, then I should not take offence if you call me an imbecile.

And this is what tends to happen, even on factual tax related topics.
I say something.
You say "You are wrong and should not mislead people"
I say "What do you know about it? "
And next thing we are at each other's throats and the original question is no longer being answered.


So where do we draw the line as moderators?

This is the current Guideline

10 Do not abuse other posters
Controversy and argument are welcome. But please keep your comments civil. Attack an opinion by all means, but please don't attack the person expressing the opinion.Posts or threads which use language designed to be deliberately offensive or just to stir up trouble will be deleted.

What about the following:

Trade information and opinions not insults
If someone is factually wrong, point this out. Although it might be tempting, don't describe someone else's post as "rubbish" which is an attack on the person and not just the argument. Even a mild insult can result in a much more seriously offensive reply and before we know it, the posters are trading insults rather than information. If you are insulted, don't respond. Report the post and the moderators will deal with it.

We might have to also develop a "don't be confrontational" posting guideline. Some people seem to register for the craic to annoy other people. Do we ban them early on? But I learn more from people I disagree with than people I agree with.

We already moderate out all bad language and people get annoyed at that, explaining the old English derivation of words.

Even in factual posts, some people post absolute rubbish. And I know that I have responded "You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about". In one sense, it is important to say that.

It's particularly annoying to the legally qualified people who post here to read some of the bar stool Freeman stuff dressed up in legalese. "I think you might be wrong..." is not a strong enough response to this sort of stuff.

Or do we just accept that there will be a certain amount of low level insulting behaviour and live with it and the consequences?

Thought welcome.
 
If you are going to moderate, then you should moderate.

If I'm on a wild west un-moderated internet forum, I can fight fire with fire, but if the site is moderated then I think you are right to clamp down on 'needling' behaviour.
You can point out factual or logical errors in what someone has said, but there's no need to put the boot in. It just provokes the inevitable response.
It's like in hurling, player A gives player B a dig in the ribs with the side of the hurl; then player B turns around and hits player A and gets sent off.

There are forums on another Irish site that I just avoid. It's impossible for anyone to reasonably disagree with someone on those forums.
If someone disagrees with you, then you have to be an idiot or whatever. The forum is effectively a closed shop to any reasonable newcomers.

So I am 100% in favour of this:
If someone is factually wrong, point this out. Although it might be tempting, don't describe someone else's post as "rubbish" which is an attack on the person and not just the argument.
 
odyssey06 said:
It's like in hurling, player A gives player B a dig in the ribs with the side of the hurl; then player B turns around and hits player A and gets sent off.
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That is brilliant and summarises it exactly. Except that on a forum, the ref can see the first dig in the ribs, which the referee would have missed in hurling.

Brendan
 
My belief:- If you are a member of a forum you should expect to receive criticism from your posts. You are not God and don't have the divine right to think that you are correct all the time. There is nothing wrong with good debate.

However, abuse is abuse and it should be stopped at the earliest possible moment.

I don't know which Posters we lost, but I would ask them to return. Otherwise. they are giving in to the "bullying" or bad behaviour of others.
 
Leper said:
Otherwise. they are giving in to the "bullying" or bad behaviour of others.
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Hi Leper

They are not leaving because they were insulted. They left because they felt that we did not uphold their complaint. We uphold the vast majority of complaints. Most people don't mind a bit of rough and tumble and don't complain when they are insulted.

Brendan
 
I don't agree with everything that happens on AAM. However, I know the site is run on a bona fide basis. And if somebody leaves because their complaint was not upheld, then let them go. The last thing any forum needs is somebody who cannot take criticism. It appears to me that these are the kind of people who would complain about the fluidity of water.
 
I suppose the forum software doesn't support it, but it would be very helpful to say, open a ticket when reporting a post and then see "status upheld - violation of rule 7", or "complaint rejected - no rule breached". I guess email \ PM can be used instead.
 
I think there are too many " fights" . I wonder if internet attracts intolerance .
I rarely get involved in these and wonder why there is so much lost energy spent on these .
I think a lack of empathy is behind it and at times I think this comes from the top!
 
Given how nasty social media has become over the last few years, I think this site is very civilised. Yes, there may be a few arguments just like two pals may have an argument down the pub. No need to hold a grudge over it. People should remember that their words can be seen as insulting to others at times but otherwise, I think the mods do a great job.


Wouldn't mind to be allowed swear the odd time though ;)
 
odyssey06 said:
it would be very helpful to say, open a ticket when reporting a post
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Hi Odyssey

What happens is as follows
Odyssey reports a post by mtk
It opens a "ticket" in the Reported Posts section
The mods review it.
MTK's post is deleted. There is a space for telling MTY why their post is deleted and we usually tell them why.
We tick resolved and send a resolution message to you.

If it's a very serious breach, a warning issued at the same time as the post is deleted.

We don't usually tell MTK that the post was reported. We certainly wouldn't tell him that Odyssey reported it.

Brendan
 
Is it worth adding something to the rules about no bickering? If people are aware that it's a genuine reason for reporting a post, it would be used.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
But in these two incidents while the offending comments were OTT, they were responses to insulting comments by the offended posters.
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So they themselves had begun the shoving in the playground and then stormed off when somebody shoved them back?

In my opinion your duties as custodian of this fine resource shouldn't extend as far as being a Nanny to this type of childish behaviour Brendan.

There are behaviours that can be reasonably foreseen and accommodated/dealt with and then there's the above petty nonsense.

I'd question the scale of the losses to be honest.
 
I accept that moderating a site is an extremely time consuming and can at times be a thankless job.

However on the language point I feel sometimes it may be a tad over-moderated. I recall two personal incidents, I was pulled up on over the years, one where I said something along the lines of " I wouldn't be ar**d" and on another occasion, "second method is a piece of p**s".
OK, I could have said "bothered" and "easy" but come on, we are not kids and both threads were light enough and IMHO my responses described EXACTLY my view.

May be harder to moderate, but many posts can be full of derisory, aggressive and arrogant undertones which in my view are a lot worse than lightly shaded language.

I know you are, and rightfully so, strict on meaningful thread titles, but if possible, can a thread starter be reminded to supply as much pertinent information to the question/problem in hand. This not only saves all people replying from guessing the answer, trying to read between the lines and/or giving a completely unrelated and at times a wrong answer. This, as you may have noticed, is a pet hate of mine. Indeed, some threads we can be on page two or three before we get the relevant information required to offer a purposeful response.

We are nearly getting to the point, of late, where one day we will see:- "My car has broken down and may need to be replaced. How much will this cost ? " :D:D

Also, would you consider, deleting new threads where a 10 second search on Google would provide the answer and then informing the poster the reason for deletion ? I feel such posts are insulting to the many fine posters here and show a lack of respect to them, ie. the OP is not willing to give up their own time to do the search themselves but expects others to do so and "spoon feed" them the results. This would have the added beneficial side effect of cutting down on clutter. Some forums I am a member of take a very dim view of such posters.

However to finish up, on the whole I reckon you and the other mods have got a very good balance of moderation, certainly way ahead of many other sites/forums.

Just my tuppence worth.
 
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SparkRite said:
"second method is a piece of p**s".
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This thread is not a general review of the POsting Guidelines but as a few of you have raised this. When we delete a post which contains a profanity, they will often come back and point out some other one which was not deleted.

So the simplest thing for us is to delete them all. And the simplest thing for you is to use bothered and easy.

And I suspect that the ban on bad language probably makes people more thoughtful in what they say?

Brendan
 
Brendan Burgess said:
This thread is not a general review of the POsting Guidelines but as a few of you have raised this. When we delete a post which contains a profanity, they will often come back and point out some other one which was not deleted.

So the simplest thing for us is to delete them all. And the simplest thing for you is to use bothered and easy.

And I suspect that the ban on bad language probably makes people more thoughtful in what they say?

Brendan
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I realise that Brendan and I'm not arguing the posting guidelines, the only reason I mentioned it was that you said it in your OP,

Brendan Burgess said:
<snip>
We already moderate out all bad language and people get annoyed at that, explaining the old English derivation of words.
<snip>

Thought welcome.
Click to expand...

I just felt quoting what I had actually posted (hardly profane language) leant weight to my point, ie. over-moderation.
But I take your point and I fully agree that it could, in certain circles, be perceived as "lowering the tone".
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Agreed, but that is probably why people do occasionally take offence. They wouldn't mind it on boards.ie or politics.ie where it's not moderated.

Brendan
Click to expand...
I post on Boards.ie, and I think it is well moderated. Some sections are moderated, and some are not. Knowing which are which allows me to filter and choose what I say/read. I won't get offended if someone goes off on one in a non-moderated forum. I wear my big-boy pants and realise that if I'm offended, that's my problem. I have found that the mods step in fairly quickly and fairly on the moderated forums.

I've been here for a while, and I agree that this is one of the more civilised forums (fora?) around. I mentioned before about the signal to noise ratio. I don't think it attracts too many trolls or argumentative types (who want to argue for the sake of it). There are one or two that shall remain nameless ;), but on the whole I find that it has the correct balance.

As regards promoting better behaviour, I think that might be a hiding to nothing. We're all adults, and if the forum gets over-modulated, it becomes sanitised and all the fun and friction would be gone.
 
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