An Appeal for Civility

[Andrew Stoller]

You are missing the point to this whole ordeal. It is about the freedom to express opinions for what one believes in and to stand up for one selves.

If this is how you are taking this situation then your lack of common sense disgust me.

You might want to read the 1st amendment.

"Congress (not Stormtrack) shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

There is no legal concept of free speech on private property.

 

[Lanny Dean]

That isn't a bad idea. Let me run it past Tim and get his input.

Please inform Tim that I would love to participate in this new possible forum!
Also, can you tell him to have a lookie see over at my blog site?
Thanks

 

[Joey Ketcham]

This is a private forum. If you don't like how things are run here than feel free to leave.

That is a bad attitude to have, even on a forum. When multiple people are complaining of the same thing, then there is a problem. Telling people to leave if they don’t like it is not a satisfactory answer, even for a forum. Without us, this forum would be non-existent. That’s just how it is. If you throw this attitude out again and again until everyone is gone then there is no reason for the forum to even exist. So I would hope that the “if you don’t like it, leave” response you tend to give is not a response that Tim encourages and if it is, then that is sad.

This is a private forum, but the fact is we are the driving force behind this forum. We are the ones who make it successful. Without the members, including myself, then this forum wouldn’t exist. I’ve seen forums that were at one time very successful get driven into the ground because of bad moderation.

I think Tim’s lack of intervention is a disservice to this forum and it’s members.

 

[Robert Dewey]

Okay... I just moved my queen, and she's looking awfully dramatic. Get your rooks outta the way.

 

[Lanny Dean]

That is a bad attitude to have, even on a forum. When multiple people are complaining of the same thing, then there is a problem. Telling people to leave if they don’t like it is not a satisfactory answer, even for a forum. Without us, this forum would be non-existent. That’s just how it is. If you throw this attitude out again and again until everyone is gone, then there is no reason for the forum to even exist. So I would hope that the “if you don’t like it, leave†response you tend to give is not a response that Tim encourages and if it is, then that is sad.

This is a private forum, but the fact is we are the driving force behind this forum. We are the ones who make it successful. Without the members, including myself, then this forum wouldn’t exist. I’ve seen forums that were at one time very successful get driven into the ground because of bad moderation.

I think Tim’s lack of intervention is a disservice to this forum and it’s members.

Very good post Joey. Well said, well thought out, well played.

 

[Greg Campbell]

Okay... I just moved my queen, and she's looking awfully dramatic. Get your rooks outta the way.

Come and GET my rooks, tough guy!

FWLIW, I'd go along with a Springer Forum. So long as people continue to confuse 'rights' with 'privilege,' a dedicated forum might offer a place to vent. IMO, the 5$ membership exists to defray hosting and 'admin costs' (beer, most likely! ). It does NOT buy you your own personal soap box in central square.


(Edit) After reading Tim's subsequent post, I'm inclined to agree with his POV. Providing users with a Springeresque mud pit is not the purpose of ST.

Dustin's vision of a robustly moderated (only as required!) weather-specific forum sounds pretty damn compelling.

 

[Skip Talbot]

Why don't you guys start a ST mirror or knock off where you can run wild? The message forum PHP app is often included by web hosts for free once you get a subscription package from them.

 

[Steve Miller]

Why don't you guys start a ST mirror or knock off where you can run wild? The message forum PHP app is often included by web hosts for free once you get a subscription package from them.

....so Skip can hang out in ST all by him lonesome?

 

[Andrew Ryan]

Jerry Springer forum can redirect to here -> http://www.4chan.org/

 

[Jason Boggs]

We all get threatened if we don't "toe the line" and frankly I am sick of it.

You want memebers to start dropping like flies....keep this stupid **** up

Lanny, maybe you should get out if you don't like the way things are handled here. Seems like the more you bitch, the more you post on here. If you hate it that much get out! Also, you need to get off that damn high horse you rode in on.

 

[Stephen Locke]

Jerry Springer Discussion Board
Anything goes. An hour spent in this forum
is 60 minutes of your life you'll never get back.

I'm a strong advocate of segregating the dramatic
discussions from the serious weather section. My concern
is the drama does nothing to attract and retain
the professional members (the ones I learn from).
Every once in a while one of the well known
weather people will show up and say something
succinct and valuable. I personally feel honored
when ever this happens. It elevates the membership.
Those people are professionally secure and contributing
to Stormtrack does nothing to advance their careers.
If Stormtrack is fraught with debased behavior
then those pros will find hanging out here a liability.
The dramatic discussions do not honor the serious
more professional membership.

On a personal note I fear the development of
a competing forum of a more exclusive membership
and a wholesale migration to that location.
I would not likely be invited to such a group as
my credentials and low profile may not qualify me for membership.

Our conduct here on Stormtrack either attracts
quality members or pushes them away. Each of us
can ask ourselves how we influence that process.

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

In all seriousness, the problem I have is people being stripped away of their right to their opinions just because the Mods don’t like what the person has to say. I don’t think anything that was said in the thread about Reed was that bad and is especially nothing compared to what I see on a daily basis on other forums I frequent.

It seems to me like anytime there is a heated debate you have the Mods immediately coming on closing the thread and threatening to ban people. I don’t see what the problem is. Debates are naturally going to become heated, it happens. If people can’t debate on here and voice their opinions then what purpose does this forum serve?

How boring would our world be, and this forum, if everything just agreed with one another and there were no debating?

I believe one of the points that Bob was making was along the lines of "stop spending your time and effort meditating about how everyone else is impacting you and starting meditating about how you impact everyone else." (Please correct me if I am incorrect, Bob.) Often we get so caught up about what we perceive as being others' boneheadedness or abruptness that we stop considering how me might be coming off ourselves. (I know I have this problem from time to time.)

Instead of asking "how boring would our world and this forum be if everyone just agreed with one another", would it not be better to ask "how awesome would our world and this forum be if everyone who disagreed with one another did so with respect, love, and dignity?"

*edit* I hadn't noticed that there were 5 more pages in this thread and the first page seemed rather civil -- if this thread is proverbially "burning down", then my apologies for posting in it.

 

[Tim Vasquez]

This is a really great thread and I hope it continues. There is nothing wrong with discussing how we can do things better, though of course we can't be everything to everybody.

My involvement in Stormtrack has wavered a bit over the summer. I have been checking it regularly but most of my work lately has been on the more mundane stuff like the server, software, database, and plans to overhaul the library area, and also I've had too many pans on the fire and a full job jar in the kitchen. Just today I woke up at 5 am and spent much of the day in Norman doing errands to try to get my commitments under control, and fortunately things are looking much better now. My weathergraphics.com forum is also somewhat neglected and I'm hoping to get to that in the next couple of days.

In short, when we have the kind of crap that went on in Bar & Grill, it's not so much a condemnation of the participants as it is our failure to set expectations or impose consequences. I have went ahead and posted a notice on our expectations (log out and log in to make it appear, if you haven't seen it) and it seems that a reading of the TOS may be in order for a lot of folks. I am also well aware of the personality conflicts going on between moderators and some of the folks here, and at this point I'll stick around a bit more in the forum area to help mediate some of this better and get more in tune with what is going on.

The Jerry Springer forum concept was actually tested right here back in 2004 or 2005; this section was called "Hall of Flames" I believe and it was actually my idea as I hoped to containerize some of the problematic users and discussions. However it became very unpopular (almost to the point of revolt) in a matter of days, and most users who complained about it were right: it did not reflect well on us and it was a strong derail from what is our main mission: to share knowledge and discussion about weather. The Bar & Grill has never been considered the focal point of the board -- in fact at one point around 2005 we pruned out users who were posting almost exclusively there. And since it is not that important to meteorology and chasing, we don't have a high tolerance for disruptive threads and flame wars in that area. There are probably other social networking sites that are better suited for that role. We have had occasional discussions about removing Bar & Grill entirely, but we do recognize the need for users to talk about common interests, family, and events. Rants and that kind of thing do get into a gray area from what Stormtrack is supposed to be.

Tim

 

[Justin Wiley]

Lanny, at one point a couple of weeks ago you were calling for the banning of newbies in the Advanced forum. Now, you're crying about the banning of a couple of your friends.

That seems kinda hypocritical to me, doesn't it?


I agree with Jason. No one's forcing anybody to be here. If you don't like the way StormTrack (a private entity) is run, then leave and start your own site. And then you can try to prove the mass exodus of people leaving this site, like you claim will happen..

 

[Daniel Christianson]

First and foremost i am always outside the box, lets look at this from a big perspective were human, supposed to be treated as equals, if we all got along, even here on stormtrack that would be wonderful. But it doesn't seem to make a difference because if you look around there's bound to be drama somewhere. Feelings do get hurt and some don't intentionally even think there hurting someone (example sarcasm ) If we got down to the tooth and nail of everything and just became so strict then your losing the right to speak your freedom. My point is if you were hurt by someone send them a pm and let them know how you feel or email them directly and try to resolve it this way. If they choose to be a jerk , that's there problem you know, you tried and that is that. But dragging emotions/feelings/problems into community is more then likely going to ruffle feathers either way you look at it. Everyone has there own right to say what they want however right or wrong, depending on how far you take it. This goes for any community/forum out there.