27-10-2023, 01:11 PM
Jez, I think we need to have a bit of a reset here.
Many of your posts here (and the handful of yours that I've seen on UKVRRR) are informative and entertaining. And welcome.
But of course, some of your posts cause controversy. You know that.
The thing is, this is a web forum that is run by a private individual (me). As such, I decide what the rules are. Our rules are very simple, and have served us well over the years. I didn't come up with them originally, but I helped to shape them over the first few years, and I continue to support them today. They have stood the test of time.
But what all forum members understand - and I'm sure that you get this too - is that you are all guests here. Very welcome guests, but guests nonetheless. I don't have to let everyone in, and I can show people the door if I wish. That is entirely my right.
Imagine if you came to visit me. If you were invited into my lounge or workshop, how would you talk to me? Would you brag about your motorbike and the speeds you do on it? And if you saw from my body language that I wasn't comfortable with you talking like that, would you keep going? Or would you change the subject to something less contentious? Let's hope so.
Of course, you can't see my body language via the forum, but my post (#40, yesterday lunchtime) was an attempt to convey that, via plain text, at least. For me, it was a little bit blunt in places, but I allowed some of that past my usual self-editing process to betray the frustration I was feeling with a number of aspects under discussion.
Ultimately, what I'm building towards is really simple. There is no right to free speech here. This is a privately run forum, and the owner has the final say over what is discussed. That is not unusual - it applies to all forums, pretty much. It's not social media or even unmoderated USENET (for those who remember those days!).
Perhaps I'm stating the obvious, but I wanted to just set that out for you. Why? Because you've said on more than one occasion, including just recently in this thread, that you have got yourself banned from multiple forums. We have to wonder what could be going on here, and talking my default approach to life (approaching it dispassionately like any other engineering problem), there is a very, very obvious common factor staring me in the face...
Now look, no-one is being told to not be true to themselves, but in real life communities, we all show respect and civility to one another - basic politeness and manners, plus a bit of "reading the room" - and it works well on the whole. A forum is also a community, where exactly the same applies, only we have to work slightly harder at this because we don't have the visual and tone-of-voice cues that we get from real-world interactions.
So what I'm very gently trying to ask is for you to moderate yourself. As I said at the start, a lot of your posts are fine, but you really do need to reign in the crazy a bit in certain areas, such as your attitude to road safety (let's hope the "real you" isn't the extreme character you're portraying here). Also, please don't mention how UKVRRR is run again. This is the 3rd time I've asked in this thread - I won't ask again.
What's next? Our tools are simple and blunt - we can put people on moderation, or we can ban them. Both of those are incredibly rare. From memory, in the entire life of the forum, we've only ever had one person banned, and that decision was made by others (at the time I just did the "tech", but I did support them). Likewise, from memory I think we've only ever put 1 person on moderation (plus another for a couple of weeks). Having people on moderation is extra work for us, whereas banning people feels too much like giving up. I have always tried to work with people to explain what the issues have been, although it isn't always easy. No-one enjoys being told they're in the wrong, and I don't enjoy doing it either - especially when they "shoot the messenger". But it has resulted in mostly positive outcomes. Though I did have more time back then, I suppose.
Again, I will leave the thread open. Hopefully people can see that I'm not trying to "have the last word" and leave no right of reply. It would have been much easier to have simply shut this down earlier, but I've tried my best here - we can all learn from these experiences, myself included. Perhaps I should be quicker to jump on these sorts of threads, but as I'm not able to be here full time, I'd much rather treat people as grown-ups and let them all self-moderate. I know, I'm still far too idealistic and naive!
Finally, I just want to thank those who have supported me here. It's not easy, that's for sure, but knowing that I wasn't the only one bothered by this thread has been a great help. There have been some excellent points made here in the thread, and I will reply to PMs soon. And sorry for my grumpiness yesterday - not that I should need to apologise for how I talk on my own forum, and I was trying to convey an emotion, but still, no offence was intended.
Onwards and upwards
Many of your posts here (and the handful of yours that I've seen on UKVRRR) are informative and entertaining. And welcome.
But of course, some of your posts cause controversy. You know that.
The thing is, this is a web forum that is run by a private individual (me). As such, I decide what the rules are. Our rules are very simple, and have served us well over the years. I didn't come up with them originally, but I helped to shape them over the first few years, and I continue to support them today. They have stood the test of time.
But what all forum members understand - and I'm sure that you get this too - is that you are all guests here. Very welcome guests, but guests nonetheless. I don't have to let everyone in, and I can show people the door if I wish. That is entirely my right.
Imagine if you came to visit me. If you were invited into my lounge or workshop, how would you talk to me? Would you brag about your motorbike and the speeds you do on it? And if you saw from my body language that I wasn't comfortable with you talking like that, would you keep going? Or would you change the subject to something less contentious? Let's hope so.
Of course, you can't see my body language via the forum, but my post (#40, yesterday lunchtime) was an attempt to convey that, via plain text, at least. For me, it was a little bit blunt in places, but I allowed some of that past my usual self-editing process to betray the frustration I was feeling with a number of aspects under discussion.
Ultimately, what I'm building towards is really simple. There is no right to free speech here. This is a privately run forum, and the owner has the final say over what is discussed. That is not unusual - it applies to all forums, pretty much. It's not social media or even unmoderated USENET (for those who remember those days!).
Perhaps I'm stating the obvious, but I wanted to just set that out for you. Why? Because you've said on more than one occasion, including just recently in this thread, that you have got yourself banned from multiple forums. We have to wonder what could be going on here, and talking my default approach to life (approaching it dispassionately like any other engineering problem), there is a very, very obvious common factor staring me in the face...
Now look, no-one is being told to not be true to themselves, but in real life communities, we all show respect and civility to one another - basic politeness and manners, plus a bit of "reading the room" - and it works well on the whole. A forum is also a community, where exactly the same applies, only we have to work slightly harder at this because we don't have the visual and tone-of-voice cues that we get from real-world interactions.
So what I'm very gently trying to ask is for you to moderate yourself. As I said at the start, a lot of your posts are fine, but you really do need to reign in the crazy a bit in certain areas, such as your attitude to road safety (let's hope the "real you" isn't the extreme character you're portraying here). Also, please don't mention how UKVRRR is run again. This is the 3rd time I've asked in this thread - I won't ask again.
What's next? Our tools are simple and blunt - we can put people on moderation, or we can ban them. Both of those are incredibly rare. From memory, in the entire life of the forum, we've only ever had one person banned, and that decision was made by others (at the time I just did the "tech", but I did support them). Likewise, from memory I think we've only ever put 1 person on moderation (plus another for a couple of weeks). Having people on moderation is extra work for us, whereas banning people feels too much like giving up. I have always tried to work with people to explain what the issues have been, although it isn't always easy. No-one enjoys being told they're in the wrong, and I don't enjoy doing it either - especially when they "shoot the messenger". But it has resulted in mostly positive outcomes. Though I did have more time back then, I suppose.
Again, I will leave the thread open. Hopefully people can see that I'm not trying to "have the last word" and leave no right of reply. It would have been much easier to have simply shut this down earlier, but I've tried my best here - we can all learn from these experiences, myself included. Perhaps I should be quicker to jump on these sorts of threads, but as I'm not able to be here full time, I'd much rather treat people as grown-ups and let them all self-moderate. I know, I'm still far too idealistic and naive!
Finally, I just want to thank those who have supported me here. It's not easy, that's for sure, but knowing that I wasn't the only one bothered by this thread has been a great help. There have been some excellent points made here in the thread, and I will reply to PMs soon. And sorry for my grumpiness yesterday - not that I should need to apologise for how I talk on my own forum, and I was trying to convey an emotion, but still, no offence was intended.
Onwards and upwards
