Behave yourselves!

[Xlex]

Whilst I have been called into line once, I don't pretend to ignore the fact that because we are as such 'faceless' we should act without a certain amount of manners on any message board, but in particular, foot.ie.

Foot.ie is a community, essentially for eL supporters, it has made provision to discuss General Soccer, Irish Soccer and Off-Topic. Through its Support forum, Adam has given us a say in what happens with foot.ie. He pays for the vB and the domain name as well as the webspace and at the end of the day, what he says goes.

Some things have been lost on the idea that this is a community for all to use. (not abuse) and to this end I think a serious re-check be taken to ensure it doesn't go down the road of the eL message board.

Places such as Boards.ie would not allow some of the flaming that occurs here... It seems that if someones point of view does not go down well, it's flamed...

Posters have appeared here and made opinions that do not concur with some general views. Two posts have really highlighted my need for this rant.

[list=1]
Iarmhibhoy - Anti Celtic?? (http://foot.ie/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6844&perpage=10&pagenumber=3)
hooper - Lads please (http://foot.ie/t6506.htm)
[/list=1]

Both were reasonable posts, polite and non-abusive, but the replys were not...

time to stamp-out the misbehaving. Clean the mess up and save all your typing sores for Football/Music/General Football banter, fun and slagging that we are here for, and not the mindless abusive stuff that get's in the way...

[UCD_4_Life]

Yeah some people are a bit out of order in places.

In fairness for the most part it's just heated-ish discussion but there are places where it does get abusive.

[Macy]

But I also think that some of the comments, particularly by Iarmhibhoy were totally condesending and deserved to be shot down... To be fair, I really don't know what people expect coming on an eL message board talking down our league and talking up a foriegn league and one club in particular... Scotsman wasn't as bad, and I think people quickly picked up that he was actually scottish! They got off lightly, IMO - on the eL board they would have been told were to go far more, eh, succinctly...

Didn't bother with the Lads please, as I know it is a Cork v Rovers thread... I've commented on them elsewhere...

[Xlex]

I'd like you to point out where he attacked the eL... He didn't, He resorted to comment and debate and what did he get from certain sections of this board... Also I think it was an insult that his thread was merged with Scotmans... because they are from different sides of the spectrum... You feel he's being condescending does not deserve flaming... after all it's very hard to derive the tone of any given post, so just assume... Now, nobody should be flamed because they don't align to our feeling towards foreign Leagues, particularly when through the general football Forum, there is a medium to discuss this...

hooper posted a reasoned comment on the recent Cork-Rovers tripe (which exists because Cork wants a rivalry...) and the responce was something like... (f**K of scum)...

close the door on your way out...:eek:

[Macy]

Just had another look through the whole thread and I don't think there was flaming going on.... Comments like below

I was "lucky" enough to see Longford Town play in Div 1 few years ago [QUOTE]
[QUOTE]where did the 1350 life long, "local team supporting",

I and the vast majority of Celtic fans are as passionate and loyal as any el supporter
Are going to get a response and I don't think anything could be considered flaming in that thread compared to the Cork v Rovers threads - Did "A face" et al not have valid points? There were one or two "f@ck off" posts, but on the most part valid statements and questions and answers... Basically if someone get's upset with that they must be a "shlord" ;)

[Xlex]

yeah well considering that only two replyed to the original post must mean that my point is invalid... let it... sometimes I think the option of debate/slagging and banter is lost on some posters who just dismiss people... it's just someting I think that had to be said to get people to just have a bit of cop on and manners...

[Macy]

Ultimately I'm more concerned about the need for as little censorship as possible - and if nothing else our debate proves the point that it is all subjective... you believe it's flaming, I believe valid points were made... If mods get too pernickety it has the potential to destroy the community that policies are supposed to protect...

[dahamsta]

yeah well considering that only two replyed to the original post must mean that my point is invalid

I'm here, I've just been holding off on commenting.

Obviously I agree with you, since I'm the one that tried to kick off reasoned discussion and community spirit, both here at Foot.ie and even before that at corkcityfc.com. I don't think it's as much a problem as it appears, but I do think it's going to get worse as we go on. Critically though, I disagree on the source of the problem, in that I think it's moderation and not the behaviour itself that's at fault here.

Certainly, if users misbehave then only they are responsible for their behaviour. However online communities mirror meatspace society in that it doesn't matter whether you use the carrot or the stick to try to keep them between the lines, people will still misbehave. That's why we have police forces in meatspace, and moderators in here, and I don't think the police force in here is doing a very good job.

I don't mean that in a nasty way, the mods may just not have the time, or might not understand what it is they're supposed to do, but the fact remains that mods on Foot.ie aren't acting like mods should. Some of them act like young Gardaí, on a power trip; others act like old Gardaí, couldn't be ar5ed; and still others act in utterly unexplainable fashion. No communication, no consultation, no effect.

I understand that I've never written the rules down, and that it's pretty loosely organised, but to be completely honest I did that because I thought people would be able to figure it out. Using the moderation tools is hardly rocket science, moderation itself is simply about common sense, and confusion can easily be solved by either following my lead or simply asking a question. I'm regularly surprised and disappointed by how rarely that happens.

Simple examples are the fact that some mods here - supermods in fact - have been deleting posts and threads unilaterally, even in light of the fact that I've said time and time again that /nothing/ is ever to be deleted on Foot.ie again, for the simple reason that we need an audit trail. Another one is that fact that I've rarely if ever seen a user on Foot.ie warned to cop on by anyone but myself. And of course there's the fact that no-one has ever stood up and said "I did that" when something goes wrong.

Like I said above, I don't think it's all that bad at Foot.ie at the moment, and there's a ways to go before it gets to eLmb level, but unless mods and supermods start acting like mods and supermods, it will. Frankly, I'd shut it down long before we got there. It would defeat the entire purpose of Foot.ie.

In all honesty, I'd be kinda ticked off if that happened. The eL is changing now, we've got people who really seem to care taking over clubs, and only yesterday we had a genuine innovator appointed as CEO of the FAI. Communities like Foot.ie should be setting an example.

adam

[James]

everything in Moderation like

Fairs point Xlex, the city rovers thing is tit for tat, both to blame and i think the thing started over on the rovers mb with certain city posters wether they be from here or not going over and stirring chite. rovers then are naturally gona come here to foot.ie (as the home of cork city fans) and reply. some of the stuff posted on rovers boards was waaaay over the top.

as for adams points on the role and duties of the mods and supermods. again this was / has been never laid down what to do and how to handle things. my last big excursion into moderation was in relation to the noel mooney court case which having consulted a site director I put the thread into the rubbish section, only to later get abuse for posters / mods / wanabee mods here for abuse of power.

mostly here things dont go OTT, and all that needs be done is a bit of tyding up when posts go off-topic or u get multiple threads etc.

the community here is growing and i'd much rather see this place take off properly then reduce itself to the ****e u get on the el mb.

[sadloserkid]

Xlex, I thought your post was excellent and it made perfect sense to me!

As for Adam's points, nothing to be argued with there either to be honest I suppose the only thing would be that if a mod makes an error then one of the bigger fish could/should PM them and tell them where they went wrong.

I mean, I personally think I do a good job at modding the Limerick forum (and before anybody makes a smart comment, probably James ;) , check the figures, it's one of the busiest club forums here). I generally sticky the stuff that needs to be stickied (except for last week when Adam beat me to it :o ), on the one occassion where I moved something to rubbish I e-mailed the user and explained, I've PM'd a couple of people to explain other little things they were doing wrong (repeated use of peoples first names in posts) and I think I generally do a decent enough job. However I may be wrong. I may be the worst moderator on foot.ie. However I presume that any glaring mistakes I made would be pointed out to me and that that would apply across the board?

If people aren't meeting the standards set by those at the top for moderators then they should be told so and offered a chance to prove they can do better. If that doesn't work then I suppose that further steps may need to be taken.