Cleaning up MP--Post Deletions

Glenn Schuler wrote: If I get censored, I'll know why. You won't see me whining & bitching about it like some people.

Gotta give Glenn a PLUS BUZZILLION for that one.

Internet math, bestest way to balance the checkbook.

yes, bestest.

I have an opinion on this very important issue but it's obvious that the moderators of this site would not agree with it so maybe I'll just keep that to myself...

...along with any beta regarding gear, routes, techniques, etc. that I might have also considered sharing. The Oregon section of MP is a train wreck but I have no interest in actively contributing to a database for a website that feels the need to moderate any dissenting opinions as heavily as this one.

Thankfully, there's lots of other places on the internet for me to discuss pretty much anything I want without being concerned about stepping on an over zealous moderators toes or having to worry about offending some ignorant noober because they're too stupid and lazy to use the search function on any one of dozens of places that this info is available.

coldfinger, what's with the whinny little bitch voice you keep squeaking in? You never seem to post shit like this over at CC and it's twice the shit show this place could ever hope to be. Sack up and stop worrying so much about what other people say, do and think. If you don't like it, don't read it. Period.

What this site clearly needs is a way for admins to terminate threads that have gone on for far too long and have now become pointless and silly.

youtube.com/watch?v=Iu7vySQ…

Leeroy Jenkins wrote:The Oregon section of MP is a train wreck but I have no interest in actively contributing to a database for a website that feels the need to moderate any dissenting opinions as heavily as this one.

We don't moderate opinions here. We moderate directed personal attacks, and generally stay on top of Rule #1.

Go to /b on 4Chan if you want to have an audience and no moderation.

The rest of the administrators and I regularly receive feedback from the community that guides our choices to prevent a small minority of users from negatively impacting the site. The vast majority of users here appreciate the moderation, and there are really just a handful of people who complain about it. Not coincidentally, they are the same people who find their posts being removed.

Peter, your last statement was friggin classic; okay, maybe just 2.5 star -- good+

Peter Franzen wrote: We don't moderate opinions here. We moderate directed personal attacks, and generally stay on top of Rule #1. Go to /b on 4Chan if you want to have an audience and no moderation. The rest of the administrators and I regularly receive feedback from the community that guides our choices to prevent a small minority of users from negatively impacting the site. The vast majority of users here appreciate the moderation, and there are really just a handful of people who complain about it. Not coincidentally, they are the same people who find their posts being removed.

I don't know about that bolded statement, I think a correct statement would be something like "The vase majority of users here tolerate the moderation", but I think many of us are just too lazy to complain about it. Personally I would guess that the number of people who actually appreciate the moderation is relatively small, probably a pretty similar number to the number of people who absolutely hate the moderation. I would also guess that the majority of users would prefer to have no moderation, but understand that this is a privately owned site that has the right to set the rules, so they tolerate it.

Peter Franzen wrote: We don't moderate opinions here. We moderate directed personal attacks, and generally stay on top of Rule #1. Go to /b on 4Chan if you want to have an audience and no moderation. The rest of the administrators and I regularly receive feedback from the community that guides our choices to prevent a small minority of users from negatively impacting the site. The vast majority of users here appreciate the moderation, and there are really just a handful of people who complain about it. Not coincidentally, they are the same people who find their posts being removed.

I am not a huge fan of moderation - I am sad to see the MP turning into an arbitrary censored classified ads bulletin board. For example a recent thread on religion and climbing - why was it moved to the Community Forum? I think spirituality and religion is a topic very relevant to climbing - while many of us don't subscribe to any of major religious views, as climbers we're in a constant pursuit of finding answers to questions like what motivates and drives us and what our priorities and values are.

Instead of policing sarcastic "mean" contributors, who actually have valid points, why don't focus on (or un-focus from) the posters of serial incoherent, inconsequential one-liners that turn every thread into garbage? I think it's time to bring a "mute" or "ignore" feature to this site. When I first started climbing the first thing I learned was to grow a thick skin and distill some constructive criticism from straight-shooters. If you can't take heat from anonymous interwebs, it would be pretty darn tough to cope with real-life partners or other climbers in general.

doligo wrote: For example a recent thread on religion and climbing - why was it moved to the Community Forum? I think spirituality and religion is a topic very relevant to climbing - while many of us don't subscribe to any of major religious views, as climbers we're in a constant pursuit of finding answers to questions like what motivates and drives us and what our priorities and values are.

Presumably that thread was moved because the topic strayed from the original focus of climbing and religion; I think it's a great topic for discussion but because it turned into a general discussion on theology over the last few pages it was moved to the Community forum.

Leeroy Jenkins wrote: offending some ignorant noober because they're too stupid and lazy to use the search function on any one of dozens of places that this info is available. coldfinger, what's with the whinny little bitch voice you keep squeaking in? ...... If you don't like it, don't read it. Period.

Well, if a thread I'm interested in is full of tweets, texts, trolling, personal insults and has been hijacked off topic, I kinda HAVE to wade through all that BS to find something worth reading.

I hear that argument ("don't read it") over and over in defense of rude and stoopid posting, but the point is this:

There is no way to avoid reading all that garbage, you can't tell what it is until you read it.

The funniest thing about this thread is that a few of you have managed to turn it into a great example of WHY mods have been cracking down.

I think it should be pretty obvious, to anyone looking at it objectively, that the mods have hardly been going around deleting posts willy nilly. Those of you whining are making a hullabaloo about nothing.

Most of the small amount that was removed consisted of personal attacks, stolen images or over the top vulgarity that was off putting to many readers and generating complaints. A few incendiary, but otherwise worthless posts were removed in an attempt to head off 6 pages of ugliness. Note how many posts that predict they will be deleted are still sitting right there. No controversial views are being deleted. Only when basic civility has broken down is anything done, from what I have seen.

doligo wrote: I am not a huge fan of moderation - I am sad to see the MP turning into an arbitrary censored classified ads bulletin board. For example a recent thread on religion and climbing - why was it moved to the Community Forum?

I am curious as to how moving a thread from one forum to another is considered censorship. In my mind that is just trying to fit it under the correct heading. Censorship would have been deleting things out of it or deleting the entire thread.

JLP wrote: We'll all just have to trust you on that one now, won't we?

Yes, you will, and all the other admins who can see it, who are active in building the site, and in 5 years not just posting one non climber tittie picture and a bunch of slag on the forums.

johnL wrote:I support a lot of the moderation going on here. It's directed at anonymous users and abusive users mostly. Why should we care. I actually think the site is being too lenient. Maybe delete rude comments a few times. If more than say 3 have to be deleted in a week, the user is banned for a month. If it happens again, ban the user permanently. The users that we'd lose certainly aren't the ones providing content. Good riddance and all.

Well said, John.

M Sprague wrote:I think it should be pretty obvious, to anyone looking at it objectively, that the mods have hardly been going around deleting posts willy nilly. Those of you whining are making a hullabaloo about nothing. Most of the small amount that was removed consisted of personal attacks, stolen images or over the top vulgarity that was off putting to many readers and generating complaints. A few incendiary, but otherwise worthless posts were removed in an attempt to head off 6 pages of ugliness. Note how many posts that predict they will be deleted are still sitting right there. No controversial views are being deleted. Only when basic civility has broken down is anything done, from what I have seen.

Agreed.

In general I like to talk a bit of trash as much as the next jackal, but as Mark states, it boils down to doing so with a bit of civility. That line seems to be hard for some folks to follow and personally, I think the mods do a pretty damn good job given that they are volunteering (key word) their time to do so. On top of that, many of the mods are responsible for adding quality content to the site and I have to say, many of the folks belly aching about being censored haven't added squat to the actual database.

I think a lot of what the mods are trying to accomplish is trying to set a "tone" for the website. If you let trolls run loose, they end up running wild with that slack and causing more problems than just tweaking some chains on the forums. For example, about a month ago, one of the trolls on this site took the time to look through the photos that I had posted under my personal page; they then proceeded to add comments to the photos that can only be described as personal attacks. Now, I'm not a fricking tulip, so I just blew it off and deleted the comments. However, it is still annoying and it does detract from the site to have to deal with that kind of crap. My guess is that one result of the mods nipping the bad apples in the butt is that it helps to prevent this kind of crap from going on (i.e. if a troll gets "moderated" enough, he/she will likely lose interest and quit visiting the site as often....which is good thing IMHO.)

I think not having completely free reign on the forums is a small price to pay for having a website as user friendly as MP (i.e. not like the slag fests that occur over on the Taco and RC.com).

johnL wrote: When I talk trash, it might be over the top but I have to take ownership of it. Sometimes I'm embarrassed by the things I've said and other times, I'm proud of it. Regardless of my final process, I generally try to be at least a little bit intelligent in what I write. That said, I support a lot of the moderation going on here. It's directed at anonymous users and abusive users mostly. Why should we care. I actually think the site is being too lenient.

Well said.

M Sprague wrote: Yes, you will, and all the other admins who can see it, who are active in building the site, and in 5 years not just posting one non climber tittie picture and a bunch of slag on the forums.

So I hadn't wasted my time to look before you posted this but...

Based on a quick look at some of my personal favorite (not funny) trolls, I found it interesting to see that just 5 of them had posted well over three thousand forum posts. And only one route contribution (which was apparently a REALLY AWESOME PG-13 v5+ FA [which hadn't "been sent yet"]...thanks muttonface!).

staying on topic, it does appear that some form of moderation is working to improve the quality of contributions to the site.

Jon Marek wrote: So I hadn't wasted my time to look before you posted this but... Based on a quick look at some of my personal favorite

You're right, it's so very interesting what you can find digging around in people's profiles...kinda like this:

"Trad: Leads 5.10b Follows 5.12c"

to muttonface: sorry to call you out for basically no reason...you're probably right about it violating rule #1 (but in my defense, trying a new problem is a bit different than an FA, I don't really care, but other people might) No need to get so defensive, my comment was simply an observation p.s. I agree that yarp and elenore are far superior trolls than yourself

to Will S.: No doubt you think you caught me being a total noob, but I was simply being honest (my hardest trad RP is 10b/c, and I have hang-dogged second behind a much stronger tradster than myself. Maybe if you dig a little deeper you might find something really juicy (Like that awesome boulder problem that I posted but have not yet done:P)