What should be allowed in a "route report" discuss

[Dru]

If someone posts a TR in Route Reports, lets say they go do the N face of Chair or some route, and then they chest beat ad nauseum about how hard it was and M9 this bolts that blah blah blah, and some one calls them on it and says they are full of shit (hypothetical here) - would that be "spray" and get deleted or not

[Cpt.Caveman]

BTW there was no route report on Big4 or Colonial. Only spray speculation of weather it was in or not by people. Some call that spray

[sk]

fair enough off white. but even more so then.

 

that is sort of my point.cavey and bronco arn't all over the place bitching about what so and so said. I think if you all are realy serious about MODERATING fairly you a creating a gigantic job for yourselves.

 

you can not sue someone for being an asshole. some people just are.

[slothrop]

I'm a little behind in this discussion, but here are some ideas.

 

Censorship bad. I'd rather see a degenerating thread locked than have it sliced and diced with the moderator's knife. Dru wants a moderator with style and panache, but even mattp will be hard-pressed to deliver graceful editing on a daily basis when dealing with the spray.

 

mattp, I like how you step in and ask everyone to tone it down when the buttnuggets start flying. People around here respect you, for good reason, and I think you can use that constructively. If no one listens, just lock the thread or move it to spray.

[fern]

Fern-

I will acknowledge -- for at least the third time --

that I may have misunderstood the discussion on Friday

and that I may not have skillfully drawn the line.

Had I saved the initial posts that I cut, though,

I believe you would see that Caveman did in fact

tell Dru to fuck off and the word Buttnugget or a

similar insult was used, and that there were a

couple of replies in kind.

 

I was reading that thread at the time many of those

posts appeared and disappeared. My recollection of both

the tenor and content differ from yours. I am sure my

memory of what was said is incomplete.

 

You apparently don't find those kinds of posts

inappropriate in that forum, and I have tried in

this thread to discuss that very point. I have also

tried to explain what I sought to do, and apparently

you reject that explanation.

 

You don't know anything about what I find appropriate

or inappropriate content in any particular forum

because I choose not to get involved in editorial

discussions. Or perhaps I should say 'chose', since

here I am. This is not my site, I have no desire to

be a moderator. I've presented so far at most 40 words

on the topic mainly of your actions, not on content.

I haven't rejected anything.

 

Rather than repeat how unfair I was,

 

I never called you unfair once let alone repeatedly. I used

the words strange and capricious. You chose

to remove some but not all off-topic posts, and you locked

the thread. I could not discern your criteria for choosing

which posts to delete and which to leave, nor could I

understand your reasoning for locking the thread which had

been fairly active in previous days and probably could

still have collected some on topic comments. Thus my

choice of adjectives when describing my impression of the

end of that thread. You have explained your reasoning in

this thread and I have read it.

 

might you explain how you think I might not misstep so

badly again? Do you think there should be any moderation

in the route reports forum? Are you in the all-or-nothing

camp or do you think there should be some flexibility?

If there is to be moderation of any posts, how should it

be done?-Matt

 

I think Courtenay does a great job moderating the fitness

forum. She doesn't cruise the boards everyday but reviews

and eliminates off-topic posts after the active banter has

ended. People rarely complain about the lost content,

probably partly because it is removed many days after the

initial activity and they have moved on to spray elsewhere.

I think a similar approach to the Route Reports section

would work.

 

I think that immediate elimination of posts that are

offensive on an extreme level (disguised links to kiddie

porn for example) is appropriate.

 

Childish insults and name calling are part of the culture

of this BB, and part of the entertainment value for those

who post frequently. Cutting off a conversation still in

progress is rude, in person and on the internet, regardless

of whether or not you deem it childish and off-topic.

 

 

[sk]

ONCE AGAIN

 

FERN RULES

[mattp]

Dru-

 

I am hesitant to reply directly to your inquiry because, as ChucK noted, some of those clever sprayers who frequent this site will take any rule and find a way to pervert it into a license to spray, but here goes.

 

First of all, I have already noted that the introduction for the "Route Reports" sections all say "post your reports and ask questions about routes." I have also stated that, as I see it, "this does not suggest the discussions cannot be funny or entertaining and there is no rule that says you cannot be irreverent or that you cannot argue with something that is posted there."

 

If you were to call somebody on their chest-beating in a trip report, it would probably fall into one of those grey areas where I think the decision as to how to respond will have to be made on a case-by-case basis. Such a response to a chest-beat should be done with (as you put it) "panache and style" and, in my opinion, you have proven pretty good at calling B.S. and mocking people without being mean spirited about it. So as long as you didn't call the poor sap a complete loser or use some offensive term like buttnugget, I'd probably leave it be -- but if it was Bumbly Climber's first post on the board or if I had some other reason to be sympathetic, I might consider posting some response in their defense. If you flamed the poor bastard, I'd be inclined to cut your post but there might be other options -- I might wait and see who else jumped in line behind you and the sad fact (in my opinion) is that what would most likely happen is that somebody else would jump in and call the guy a buttnugget or something. The point is that the "Route Reports" forum is not supposed to be lifeless but it IS supposed to be a forum where all climbers can post their trip reports and share or seek information on the routes -- not just those climbers who are thick skinned or who you or I think are "cool."

 

Clear as mud?

[Alex]

one thing is for sure...this should never be in a route report

 

 

[Dumpster_Diver]

Every instance is different and should be handled on a case by case basis.

 

Also on jon's comments: All I have to say is that mr. mattp asked for them

 

If I use this guy am I spraying yet

 

You are all sprayers folks! Some of you just take more time to prove it than others.

[Ade]

This censorship business is going to be hard work if in addition to cleaning up the Chair Peak thread I also have to go back and cut the crap out of the Mt. Persis thread and somebody else is going to have to go after the Personal Web Pages. I think I'll go have lunch instead.

 

Right. Why should Matt or any of the other moderators spend their time cleaning up a threads? If those individuals and their multiple avitars took their spray to the Spray area and thought a bit about what they posted before they posted it then....

 

We wouldn't need to have this discussion.

 

Matt could have lunch.

 

Half the TRs and other posts wouldn't end up reading like they were written by a Kindergarten class with a bad case of Tourettes.

 

We could all spend the time we saved climbing, or at least thinking about it.

 

BTW: Justifying spray as humour. A lot of the "funny" comments errm... aren't. Mainly because we're reading them for the fiftieth time.

 

Have fun...

 

Ade

[Bronco]

yous guys leave me outta this, I never spray anyways

 

Mattp, do what you gotta do, I appreciate mostly spray free Trip Reports and Route Conditions. If I climbed more, I'd probably like them better, but that's a different story.

 

[minx]

Lets just ban trip reports all together.

 

caveman, sorry, i was cranky earlier

[Dru]

one thing is for sure...this should never be in a route report

 

 

 

Why is the hot tub an all guy event. It is more fun with girls, boys

[iain]

and why is it taking place in the ewok village?

[minx]

preview of the next starwars movie?

[Dumpster_Diver]

Damn let's see him explain that!

[iain]

preview of the next starwars movie?

ah yes, attack of the pervs, how could I forget?

[mattp]

Dru-

That was some of the guys who woke up in the dirt the morning after my bachelor party.

[Dru]

See, when you challenge his manhood he comes thru with an excuse.

 

Have you noticed there is no more "report post to a Moderator" clicky clicker. I guess that means that there should be less moderation in future

[Dumpster_Diver]

Dru, it's right next to the finger below.

[Dru]

Yeah but its not the ever prominent whistle icon it used to be

[Dumpster_Diver]

What's a clicky clicker

[iain]

Yeah but its not the ever prominent whistle icon it used to be

what do you want, a jpeg of linda tripp?

[Dru]

What's a clicky clicker

 

[mattp]

Fern -

You offer a good suggestion in pointing out how Courtenay manages the fitness forum. But first, let me respond to your more pointed remarks.

 

You initially stated that I had erased posts in a capricious matter and then you stated that you think I misrepresented the content of the exchange that I erased. How else would you expect me to interpret that other than to suggest that you thought you knew what was erased and that you thought that what was originally there was OK? Now you say that you weren't actually following the thread closely and you don't really know what was there, and that is the point (at this point): I did not save a copy of it so we cannot go over every post and debate each single erasure.

 

I have tried to explain my reasoning, and I described the general sequence of the discussion and the kind of language that was used in the posts I deleted. Again, in reference to your complaint that I had been capricious, following the statement that I had misrepresented the situation, I assumed that you were rejecting my explanation. Pardon me if I a misunderstand you, but I read your last post to suggest that you may still be unable to discern my reasoning. I honestly don't know what else to offer. Maybe we just don't agree.

 

As I said, you make a useful suggestion when you cite Courtenay's management of the Fitness forum for how it has worked to wait a week or two before cleaning up threads that have been sprayed on. The merit I see in this approach would be that it would be less controversial because, as you put it, the sprayers would by then have moved on. Indeed, I have discussed with other moderators the idea of doing exactly that with the Chair Peak thread. The downside is that the spray remains there for that period of time in which people who seek to use trip reports in planning their next trip (those people who are generally the least likely to want to have to wade through a bunch of spray) are most likely to want to read those trip reports. Meanwhile, I either have to lock the thread or allow the spray to accumulate and I fear that if I am going to wade through three or four pages of BS and try to sort out which posts are worthy and which are not, it will take quite a bit of time. On Friday I thought I'd try a different approach – to fire a warning shot in hopes of staving off four pages of crap. Maybe I did so in a clumsy manner, but I have a hard time thinking that there would not have followed at least a page of spray had I not done what I did.