Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : SI Message Filtering - Pros and Cons -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zeuspaul who wrote (32)	2/11/1998 12:51:00 AM
From: Randall	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 263

Zeuspaul: I appreciate your thoughts on the matter, and I would like to counter with my thoughts, as follows: <<<I believe quality threads can and do survive the out of line posters. The thread often is better for the experience.>>> There is one thread that I know of that was a quality thread, but over the past seven months has experienced bickering that is growing like a cancer. It has severely eroded the free flow of information about a particular company and its common stock. It has driven people to feel anguish and to write (painfully polite as well as impolite) posts designed to bring more civil discourse. They are frustrated to the point that they post statements that they would not otherwise even think about, much less feel compelled to write. What if we have a heckler who is causing such anguish on purpose? Should that person be allowed to participate in disrupting an otherwise normal thread of discussion? What if this person seems to have some sick sense of duty to do hatchet work on a company that is in direct competition with a company that this person wants to see win-out in the market-place. Should we have to endure, I mean, survive the out-of-line poster? Oh yes, the thread has survived, but we are talking quality of life of a thread here. When countless man-hours of reading junk posts continues to be the plague of a thread because a particular poster insists on writing painfully misguided discourses, you have to believe that the majority should have the right to banish that poster. When a thread's decorum is violated months on end, you have to sympathize with the majority (the ones who are the reason for the existence of the thread) and allow them to remove the cancer at the point of origin. The thread is not better for the experience; the thread is suffering some real pain because of the experience. And the heckler is laughing at the fact that the disruptions are working. This type of sick satisfaction needs to stop. It does not serve any useful purpose to allow it to continue. <<< I would think that a disinterested party (SI management) would be the best choice if it comes to restricting posters rights. >>> In its theory, I would agree with you. But this method hasn't been effective to date in one particular thread. It does not work when tested in real life. Why ask management to police a thread where the creators of the thread, the majority, are the ones who need to set the rules, and are best positioned to determine where the problems lie? Of course Silicon Investor sets basic rules of decorum and reminds us of copyright legalities, but at the end of the day their hands are tied because of the lack of time they have to monitor a thread The administrators may not want to be caught hurting someone's feelings (when they don't even care anyway because they may not choose to read the thread) when they are asked to banish a particular poster. The administrators may not want to subject themselves to threats (either verbal or legal) by those whom they have to banish. [I hope the legal action option is not a real option.] If we had a "Banish" button, all that they would have to do is blame it on the majority of threadsters who voted to oust the bugger. <<< Considering the size of the management (I know of three!!!!!!!) I would hesitate to ask them to get involved in flame wars except in very extreme cases and clear violations of the Terms of Use. >>> Exactly! Why not let the majority (threadsters) make the rules for their particular thread. Let the threadsters make the judgments about who is being disruptive, so that it will become the thread that everyone wants to read? Give them a "Banish" button to push. Such a process would cut down on management's time spent investigating and making judgments on the individual outbreaks on a thread. <<< I would like to see Brad, Jeff and Jill focus their efforts on improving SI with the types of improvements we have seen recently and let the individual threads deal with the out of line posters. I have +/- 100 threads marked and read most of them completely. I don't see a lot of out of line posters. >>> I see that you have more time to devote to reading threads (+/- 100) than most have the time for. I think Brad, Jeff, and Jill have done a wonderful job bringing-on the kinds of changes that they have brought-on recently. However, when a rule does not exist to be broken, the out-of-line posters will continue to rule the threads. A few more rules (to improve decorum) and a little enforcement of those rules would be even more helpful. The individual threads (the majority) are currently powerless to bring about any change in any one posters frequency of posts or their content. I wish it were not so.. I reiterate my support for creating a "Banish" button (as opposed to an "Ignore" button) as a (democratic) voting mechanism for banishing and keeping disruptive hecklers off of threads that they choose to soil. Regards, Randall