Removing the HCT.
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oldschoolto
Contributor
Whatever happened to the great american tradition of " LIVE AND LET LIVE " .... This " Censorship " is because a few people with nothing better to do in their life, But to go " LOOKING " for stuff that offended them.... Then claim victory when they get " THIN SKINNED " people to buckle to their will....
If they had a ounce of backbone they would tell them to not click on the thread and stop sticking their nose where it don't belong...
Jim.....
If they had a ounce of backbone they would tell them to not click on the thread and stop sticking their nose where it don't belong...
Jim.....
Buoyant1
Contributor
You mean like the first three years of WWI? Sorry, I'm not familiar with this great tradition
Jim,
I'd like to address this a bit, if you don't mind.
First, the theme of Scubaboard is diving, not girls. I don't think anyone (least of all myself as an occasional contributor to the HCT thread) is suggesting that you shouldn't be allowed to "live and let live" but there are plenty of other websites on the internet where you can enjoy your passion for viewing racy pictures. Scubaboard has neither the mission nor the ambition to be one of them.
That said, we are not insensitive to the social aspects of the site and we try to be as accommodating as possible. Nobody saw the discussions behind the scenes but I can assure you that this change was not arbitrary or ill considered. The real reason for the change was that we had been left no choice but to implement a more restrictive policy.
This was not in response to "moral lobby" and it was not because we believe in censorship or taking away freedoms of expression.
It was entirely due to the escalating abuses of a few users who ruined it for the other 99%.
Moderators didn't do that. People who object to the pictures didn't do that. It is the full and explicit responsibility of a few users who have a great deal of difficulty playing in the same sand-box with the other kids and who just kept pushing and pushing until there was literally no other alternative.
We could have banned the users and kept the thread but the fact is that the content is in no way related to diving and ultimately we felt it was more appropriate to dump the content and adjust the policy to avoid similar problems in the future.
I hope that helps you understand.
R..
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I don't, and I had a discussion with a mod the other day that was upset that I wanted to see racy pictures on a diving website. FTR, If I ever opened the HCT, it was by mistake. As far as I know, I never viewed the thread in question.
Where is this new policy? As I've stated before, it's Pete's sandbox, and I'm happy I have the opportunity to play in it. Like sandboxes, 'boards should have sets of rules, otherwise little Billy is pulling Susie's pigtails and Susie's mom gets the sandbox shut down. We have that here, and it's called the "Terms of Service". If you don't agree with them, or you violate them, you can't play in the sandbox. For the life of me, I can't find a difference in the Terms of Service this month compared to last month. Pete says that the restrictions against "bigotry" were always there. If so, why was the HCT allowed to exist for so long?
It is unfair to make us play by a set of ever changing rules. Every thread with my Bringing Sexy Back t-shirt was removed. Maybe it's just me, but strange coincidence? I think someone out there thinks I am a porn star, and nothing could be further from the truth. I've never been filmed in flagrante delicto. .
Anyway, enough about me. Please tell us all where these new policies may be found, so those of us who live on the edge don't step over.
Bob you make some good points and I'm sure it won't surprise you that this idea was discussed at length.
Let met put it in perspective, though. Scubaboard has about 200,000 subscribers. In *any* population that size there are going to be those who exhibit anti-social/anti-authority behaviours.
Banning the offending users is like plucking the tops off of the dandelions in your front yard. You might be rid of them for a little while but they'll come back. Maybe not even the same users but users LIKE them will be back. Moreover, bannings can come across as being arbitrary and emotionally driven (and sometimes the frustration is also very real), which these groups of users have traditionally used to soap-box a lot of theatrical crying, whining and blaming moderators for everything evil under the sun. This is just another challenge to authority but many users don't see it for what it is and it creates a PR nightmare for the staff.
Hence, while dealing with them is a never ending game of whack-a-mole we prefer to try handling it by adjusting the fence where necessary and doing what we can to get them to self-police. Sometimes we book successes with that approach and sometimes, like in the case of the HCT content, they steamroll over the fence and force us to build a new one.
R..
---------- Post added October 9th, 2013 at 02:49 PM ----------
Frank,
The main text of the TOS can be found here: Forum Rules - ScubaBoard - Scuba Diving Forum - Diving Social Network
Some forums have additional rules that can be found in the header of the forum when you surf to it.
R..
The Chairman
Chairman of the Board
Rly? I bet the rules on the Spree back in 2000 are different from the ones you have today. Why? Because you can't rely on people to use their simple common sense. Businesses have to evolve to deal with new and developing situations and ScubaBoard is no different.
Most of us learned our social etiquette back in Kindergarten. We developed skills like playing nice, sharing, being courteous, and showing respect even while we playing in the sand box. I bet your teacher never trotted out the School's rule book to prove that you shouldn't taunt others because it's in the School's ToS. So when the HCT was deleted we saw a number of similar threads like "Hot Chickens" pop up all over. To be frank, the mods didn't see these threads as I did. I am the one responsible for taking down most if not all of these blatant taunts. The staff here on ScubaBoard does an incredible job keeping the peace and I'm not going to allow that kind of disrespect to grow unchallenged. How would you deal with someone on your boat who was openly mocking and belittling your staff? Would they be allowed back on your boat? Not if you valued your staff.
Here's the bottom line. If you play nice and respect others, you really don't need the ToS. It's there to protect us from the spammers, the scammers and mean people. It's a shame that it has to be longer than "Play nice" but people have a hard time extrapolating that simple concept into their discretion when posting on a forum. My tolerance and patience for the people trying to disrupt our community is at an all time low. I haven't personally banned someone for a long, long time but that's changed in the last week or so. I wouldn't be surprised if that were to happen again and I actually have my eye on 4 users at this point. They've been bopped from the Pub already and the next step is for them to find some other forum for their poison.
I'm late to this party and haven't caught up on all that I've missed during the past several months that I've been AWOL from the board. But from the little bit I've had time to read in the past 24 hours, I'll take a shot at answering this for you.
The HCT was allowed to exist to appease a subset of users. When it was created I wasn't a Mod, but I still remember that it created quite a dissension among the staff at the time. I think that it's mere existence may have even caused a few Mods to leave the board. There were also a few Mods who posted in the thread from time to time. Part of that participation was to keep an eye on things and keep it tasteful.
Eventually, some of those mods moved on, or quit participating. Users kept pushing the line with what was posted. The thread got shut down, cleaned up, and rules were established. I know the special rules for the thread were published somewhere, and I believe they were posted either in the thread itself, or as a sticky. Users followed the rule for a bit, then started to push the line again. Nudity began to get posted. Increasingly provocative pics were included. Many posts leaned towards being pornographic. Those posts began to bleed into other threads as a "norm." When they got deleted, or moved into the HCT thread, users cried "Censorship!"
At one point, a user posted an image that linked to a child pornography site (the WWW.Domain was watermarked on the photo). I personally shut down that entire thread and deleted all the inappropriate posts because of the liability that posting images of underage girls brought to the board. The offending posters were reprimanded, reminded of the rules and life went on.
As for what caused the latest moderation, I haven't read back that far yet. But I'd be willing to hazard a guess that people couldn't follow the rules and the mods got tired of trying to enforce them. The end result is that the thread went away. When people continue to abuse a privilege, they tend to lose it.
For those that never participated in it, it's no great loss. For those that participated and couldn't follow the rules, they'd been warned on numerous occasions about improper posting - I know, because many of those warnings were given by me. For those that participated and did follow the rules, it's a shame they have to suffer the consequences as well, but on the other hand that's part of the price for not self moderating the abusers.
Or, I could be completely off base.
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