Killing threads mercifully

[I, Brian]

SEW has a definitely delicate path to tread, and I don't mean to disrespect either the current forum policy or operations with this post.

However, a couple of forum threads recently seemed focused on personal behaviour in a manner that would perhaps have served better in a PM discussion, rather than a public one?

For example, this thread on BlackHat tools (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=5883) is effectively superfluous for its category, and is nothing more than a new member challenging forum policies and operations. There's little to invite topical discussion, and perhaps some of the posting should have been taken to PM and the thread disposed of mercifully.

The recent fracas over the cloaking thread (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=5771) also suggests perhaps someone should have stepped in earlier, split the thread at a suitable point, and taken issues of personal conflict and confrontation to Private Messages. Without such action, we have a thread closed to discussion and some ugly altercations present, and an inability for anyone to engage in what is a subject worthy of further interest.

I'm not trying to sound critical - as before, I do appreciate that SEW has some unique challenges, not least because of the authority of the site and the commercial pressures it flows with - I'm simply trying to present user feedback, that I feel it's a shame that discussions that touch upon interesting subjects can sometimes become ruined by personal passions, which distract from real issues worthy of discussion and shared experience.

Most of the time there is no complaint, and there has been a leniency and tolerance that is certainly to be applauded. Perhaps in these two specific instances events simply overcame the situation?

[dannysullivan]

Yeah, the Black Hat thread probably should have been pulled and dealt with in PM. I've pulled it now.

Yeah, the cloaking thread probably should have had the ethics debate cut-off at its knees, since it was off-topic. But I think you know sometimes it can be interesting to let things go a bit longer. It also didn't help that things started up over the weekend.

Overall, I think both cases were more an aberration, rather than the norm. But the feedback is a good reminder.

[rcjordan]

Here's an unsolicited tip, Danny; weekends (actually starting Friday evening) should be "full alert time" for your police force. They don't have to be visible, lurk mode is fine, but the active definitely needs to be watched. Those skilled in forum manipulation and even grudge-bearing members come to know that they can hit a thread on the weekends and the impact is likely to linger quite a bit longer than usual.

Related: If it'll wait, never open a great topic on Friday.

[Marcia]

The black hat tools thread:

For example, this thread on BlackHat tools is effectively superfluous for its category, and is nothing more than a new member challenging forum policies and operations. Posts questioning moderating actions should be nuked and the member PM'd to deal with it. That thread is a perfect illustration of why. It's an unfair waste of valuable moderator time, when there's little time to spare, and provides absolutely no benefit for the other members or the community.

There's a decided advantage in having a policy in place of *not* discussing moderator actions taken publicly.


The cloaking thread

The recent fracas over the cloaking thread also suggests perhaps someone should have stepped in earlier, split the thread at a suitable point, and taken issues of personal conflict and confrontation to Private Messages. Brian, that assumes that a moderator happens to be around at a given time, which isn't always the case. And threads are not always easy to simply split up and dissect and recreate for a second so they're intelligible when there have already interchanges, which happens if a mod doesn't happen to catch it early on.

And they take forever to edit and create sometimes - quite an unfair burden to place on mods just to be polite to people violating rules and posting conventions to begin with.. Much fairer to nuke the off-topic, disruptive posts and if people want to bring up "their" topic, they can start a thead of their own rather than be allowed to pistol whip the people trying to post productively.

There's also a matter of discerning what's going on. In the case of the thread you mention, I have no qualms or hesitation whatsoever in stating, since it's public information that is freely and easily available on the internet for anyone who cares to take a few minutes to find it, that what happened in that thread was not an accident. It was a deliberate attempt at sabotage and intentionally disruptive.

Without such action, we have a thread closed to discussion and some ugly altercations present, and an inability for anyone to engage in what is a subject worthy of further interest.You are 100% right Brian, and I personally agree 100%. A lot of what's in there is ugly and of no benefit at all to anyone, neither members or those who come along in future.

Neither is it fair to the many fine people who took their time to craft well thought out, intelligent and knowledgeable posts, to allow outlaws to render the thread they contributed to worthless.

Because of a few with a personal agenda, a good thread was lost to everyone and cut off at the knees for continued discussion. That makes lawlessness and sabotage effective, doesn't it?

Personally, if it were up to me I'd hack the hell out of that thread and purge the ugliness and off-topic sabotage out of it and open it up again because there's no doubt more productive discussion that we're losing out on.

And if disrupters started up again, I'd ban them, their immediate family, their friends, their pets, their neighbors, their ancestors and any of their future descendants from ever posting and causing disruption again.

That's just my most humble, personal opinion so take it for what it's worth.