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to anyone who cares
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First of all, sorry to anyone who was legitimately trying use this website Tuesday evening. It was offline.
Second, did you know we've been online for over 4 years this November? It's been amazing so far -- over 3000 comments from all of you, many of them thoughtfully written out and very helpful. There are probably something like 1000 race results posted, something like 19,000 photos, a hand full of videos, plus a number of other goodies scattered around. It's been more work than I ever planned for, but also much more rewarding than ever expected (okay, not financially). Now this isn't really the purpose of this post, so I will move on.
This post is about the forum. You know what I'm about to say, but I will explain it anyway. The way it works is that anyone can register a free account on this website and then post messages. Messages get linked on the forum page as well as directly going to the front page of the website. The original reason was to draw as many eyes to the messages and hopefully generate some discussion. It was very slow at first. I started many of the threads myself. Sometimes I would answer my own questions purely so they would get answered. Eventually several people started commenting regularly; starting with anonymous readers, then regulars like luke, snarfblat, jc9_0 and those guys started showing up (there are many others I'm forgetting). Things got relatively exciting at times (I don't get out much -- yes laugh, thank you) with talk of the top 5 canoes or politics or sharks or most recently Tahiti.
Never in all of this have I ever removed an entire post (a couple cases of uninvited spam/pr0n aside). I have in the past closed some discussions that have become overly heated; people start attacking one another, but this for the most part has been harmless and anonymous banter. I've been pretty happy with this. Some discussions have not been very factual and largely based on personal opinion, but this seems fine -- view points from around the world! It's a wonderful thing and hopefully in some way makes the increasingly diverse paddling community more understanding of one another. When rumors pop up, the truth has a way of bubbling to the surface and life is good again. I also see this website as a place where people can freely communicate information about products or services. It helps level the playing field and get the best information to customers -- which I can only hope makes the sport more fun for all of us.
So what's the problem? Monday I removed a post. I notified the poster why (I tried to make it clear what I thought was wrong with it), and said I would not interfere if the issue was brought up again. After all, things always work themselves out; I'm all for free discussion. In fact after hearing more about the issue, it sounded big enough to warrant some attention. The thread was posted again Tuesday morning. Within a few hours there were 9 responses. I've had 3 phone calls specifically about this issue -- that's never happened before. Several big name paddlers I respect a lot gave input to remove it. I've spent hours emailing and talking with people close to me about the ethics of this. I've spent as much time on this as that one time the site was hAcKed a couple years ago. It's no fun.
The result? I'm creating a rule for forum moderation, mostly for myself to follow, but what's a rule good for if people don't know about it. Now I know there are paddlers here from all walks of life, some might take offense to profanity, but I feel this is necessary so forgive me. The rule is simple, call it the "No A**hole Rule". Harsh, but I'm not pulling this out of my ***. There are books about this. How do you avoid breaking the A**hole Rule?
Stay away from:
Who am I to be posting self-help information. I don't know, I'm barely an adult writing this at 2am somewhere in upstate NY. In fact I might be breaking one of these rules right now. But whatever -- I find information like this is always refreshing. I also recommend the classic: How to Win Friends & Influence People. Kidding right? What kind of loser would read that? (That was my first thought, maybe you are older, wiser, and wouldn’t think that.) I'm serious though, even if you have 10,000 friends and are great with people, it's worth reading. If you dig your own grave, someone's either got to burry you or pull you out. Maybe you can climb out yourself.
Now I'm just ranting though. If you've read this far congratulations. I hope everyone reads it and hope it makes you think even the tinniest bit. People should think a bit more before they say something or do something (I won't even mention believe something). Think about yourself in the other person’s shoes.
Spread a little aloha. Take someone who's never paddled out around the bay. Bring a new friend to practice. Be nice, wave to other paddlers, smile. Make people feel welcomed. I will try my best too.
P.S. If you don't know what this is all about, sorry. Take away what you want from it and please continue using the sites as you have been.
P.P.S I may be abusing my moderation abilities by turning comments off in this thread.
Aloha
Submitted by keizo on Wed, 11/22/2006 - 7:44am