Goodbye CGP, at least for now
You can't really expect perfect objectivity when moderating a group, but being wildly inconsistent, and moderating with the business end of your boot just don't cut it for me any more. So, from now on I'll be watching ospd-scrabble.
I've been participating in chat rooms of various sorts for long enough that I can't call them "Internet" chat rooms, because when I started there was no Internet--you hoped you were lucky enough to get the "high speed" dial-up modem: 300bps instead of 110.
They were as full of vitriol 35 years ago as they are today. Everyone knew the safety of flaming from behind their terminals, and everybody flamed as loudly over trivial things as they do now.
What was different back then was that moderation was much more even handed. Rarely was anyone ever kicked off. They may have been moderated to near silence, but enough of that and they'd eventually either start posting things that were agreeable to the moderator or they'd leave of their own accord.
In those freewheeling days (stipulated: "think of the children" didn't exist), however, there was a HUGE freedom of speech ethic. Moderation was a great responsibility, abuse of which quickly led to empty groups. A moderator was expected to be fair and to treat everyone equally, and not act like TV network censors who respond primarily to private, undisclosed viewer complaints and some vague notion of "contemporary community standards".
It is this latter situation that I believe CGP has fallen into. It is a moderation style under which I am very uncomfortable. The dismissal of Winter and Terry while others whose posts are arguably as controversial, and often more offensive and malicious, are allowed to remain[1] indicates a distressing level of heavy-handed capriciousness. It makes all of the rest of us ask, "When will it be my turn?" When will I say something that someone, somewhere finds offensive enough to complain to Sherrie about, after which I get the CGP Dear John letter or some demand of penance which must be met as a condition of continued membership?
By joining this or any Internet group, one implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, accepts its terms and conditions, including its moderation policy . I no longer accept this group's terms and conditions, so I must say farewell until those terms change.
-Ed Horch
[1] This is an interesting mirror to the tournament scene itself, where the code of conduct may (or may not) impose sanctions on the worst offenders, yet there is apparently nothing that can be done about people whose behavior at tournaments is consistently so bad that others will drop out when they find out these people are playing. But "Make the Scene More Attractive to Newcomers by Removing the Jerks" is a topic for another day, and for me at least, another forum.
I've been participating in chat rooms of various sorts for long enough that I can't call them "Internet" chat rooms, because when I started there was no Internet--you hoped you were lucky enough to get the "high speed" dial-up modem: 300bps instead of 110.
They were as full of vitriol 35 years ago as they are today. Everyone knew the safety of flaming from behind their terminals, and everybody flamed as loudly over trivial things as they do now.
What was different back then was that moderation was much more even handed. Rarely was anyone ever kicked off. They may have been moderated to near silence, but enough of that and they'd eventually either start posting things that were agreeable to the moderator or they'd leave of their own accord.
In those freewheeling days (stipulated: "think of the children" didn't exist), however, there was a HUGE freedom of speech ethic. Moderation was a great responsibility, abuse of which quickly led to empty groups. A moderator was expected to be fair and to treat everyone equally, and not act like TV network censors who respond primarily to private, undisclosed viewer complaints and some vague notion of "contemporary community standards".
It is this latter situation that I believe CGP has fallen into. It is a moderation style under which I am very uncomfortable. The dismissal of Winter and Terry while others whose posts are arguably as controversial, and often more offensive and malicious, are allowed to remain[1] indicates a distressing level of heavy-handed capriciousness. It makes all of the rest of us ask, "When will it be my turn?" When will I say something that someone, somewhere finds offensive enough to complain to Sherrie about, after which I get the CGP Dear John letter or some demand of penance which must be met as a condition of continued membership?
By joining this or any Internet group, one implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, accepts its terms and conditions, including its moderation policy . I no longer accept this group's terms and conditions, so I must say farewell until those terms change.
-Ed Horch
[1] This is an interesting mirror to the tournament scene itself, where the code of conduct may (or may not) impose sanctions on the worst offenders, yet there is apparently nothing that can be done about people whose behavior at tournaments is consistently so bad that others will drop out when they find out these people are playing. But "Make the Scene More Attractive to Newcomers by Removing the Jerks" is a topic for another day, and for me at least, another forum.