Post Policy

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Re: Post Policy

Post by admin »

DocBarrister wrote:The flip side is this: the more control you exercise over the content of this forum, the more responsibility and potential liability that you assume... Lawsuits often arise because of poor communication... mods imposing their own political biases and deleting content that they did not agree with... Treat members of a forum with respect, and that will often prevent some of the vitriol that can arise on these forums. Allow folks to express themselves within reason, and things should be fine.
Agreed to all of the above. The heart of this website (and formerly LaxPower... though I personally do not believe that this was recognized) is the Forum. If we can't communicate effectively, we shouldn't exist. We will and we will.
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Re: Post Policy

Post by admin »

We're having a party. And it would never cross my mind to say, "I'm having a party. How am I going to control what people say? Maybe I should have a sign at the front door saying, No swearing! Don't say Bigoted stuff! etc." I may have to remind someone that my kids are at the party so stop dropping the f-word so much but... Serious, I'm with you. The vast majority of people within the forum are and will be socially ept.
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Re: Post Policy

Post by seacoaster »

Agree with others that the Mods could on occasion seem punitive and biased on the politics.

I do think we should have an overall goal to remain civil, understanding that there will be serious and ardent differences of opinion. I would be OK continuing to filter out profanity. We all understand what "bullsh*t" and the like mean.
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ChairmanOfTheBoard
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Re: Post Policy

Post by ChairmanOfTheBoard »

im with balduccione. and smelly. need to have control otherwise there are risks and potentially existence at stake.

i say this as someone who has moderated quite a few sites over the years and seen some get so out of control, they literally go out of existence. and then what are you left with.

mods at LP had discretion, so i hardly think the reasons mattered. it's part of the agreement everyone clicked through when joining. the rest is just complaining.

i never deleted anything that wasnt in violation of the rules.
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Re: Post Policy

Post by DocBarrister »

ChairmanOfTheBoard wrote:im with balduccione. and smelly. need to have control otherwise there are risks and potentially existence at stake.

i say this as someone who has moderated quite a few sites over the years and seen some get so out of control, they literally go out of existence. and then what are you left with.

mods at LP had discretion, so i hardly think the reasons mattered. it's part of the agreement everyone clicked through when joining. the rest is just complaining.

i never deleted anything that wasnt in violation of the rules.
I was an administrator of a very early message board like this one nearly two decades ago (far inferior technology, of course). I had THREE ABSOLUTELY STRICT RULES FOR MODERATORS:

(1) No anonymous edits or deletions.

(2) All edits had to be explained and could be challenged.

(3) Just one violation and I revoked moderator status permanently.

Here’s how it worked. I had a few simple rules, which were mainly focused on preventing sustained harassment of forum members by other members. If a moderator wanted to edit or delete a post, they were first required to save the original post in a dedicated thread. Then they edited or deleted the post in the original thread. The moderator was then required to identify themselves (either in the edited post or a new post) and why they made the edit or deletion. If the member challenged that action, I decided whether the change was sustained or reversed. The entire objective was TRANSPARENCY.

Was that a whole lot of work? Heck yeah. I appointed a new administrator after just a few months. But it worked, at least most of the time. Had to can just one moderator.

Now, again, I understand how much work it was being a LaxPower mod or administrator. Same for FanLax obviously. It is NOT easy, especially if you have a day job. I want to thank all the LaxPower mods and administrators for their hard work over the years.

Having said that, the moderator and administrator protocols on LaxPower were ATROCIOUS and I would strongly recommend against replicating that approach or appointing any of those same mods here. There was no transparency and absolutely no accountability. Too often, the mods there (or at least one in particular) edited and deleted based on their own personal preferences, and did so with impunity.

My suggestion, Matt, and you’re absolutely free to ignore my advice: (1) bring more transparency into the moderator process; (2) thank all the old LaxPower mods and admins for their hard work (and it WAS hard work); and (3) appoint only moderators (if you choose to do so) who weren’t mods or admins on LaxPower.

Anyway, my three cents.

DocBarrister 8-)
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Re: Post Policy

Post by admin »

Transparency, for sure.

Personally, I never had any I-need-a-moderator issues on LaxPower. There were annoying people I didn't particularly like. But never a situation where I needed someone to step in. Make no mistake, I understand what you all are describing and I think you're justified to be annoyed. And I may be missing something but... What would be the scenario where a moderator needed to step in?
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Re: Post Policy

Post by DocBarrister »

admin wrote:Transparency, for sure.

Personally, I never had any I-need-a-moderator issues on LaxPower. There were annoying people I didn't particularly like. But never a situation where I needed someone to step in. Make no mistake, I understand what you all are describing and I think you're justified to be annoyed. And I may be missing something but... What would be the scenario where a moderator needed to step in?
Matt, fortunately, the members of LaxPower are a bit older than on many other forums. Frankly, I had never before been
part of a forum where some of the older members actually passed away. (Rest in peace, guys.)

I administered a forum where members ranged in age from teenagers to those in their early thirties. It’s completely imbecilic, but a “message board war” broke out between a group of guys led by a South African dude in Cape Town and another group led by a lesbian woman in Texas. A mod from the South African group started deleting posts he didn’t like. I revoked his mod status. All sadly true. :lol:

But I completely digress. To answer your question, moderator interventions on a forum with a membership like ours should be rare. But they weren’t on LaxPower. That was the problem.

Speculate without any evidence that a coach is about to be fired? Yeah, intervene.

Vigorously advocate that a coach be fired? That’s very different.

Or my pet peeve ... being forbidden from discussing Trump without discussing his racism? C’mon ... that’s like discussing the KKK without discussing racism. Now you’re getting into personal biases of the moderator.

It’s that old maxim ... anything that is rigid can shatter and break. Something flexible ... won’t.

In my experience, less is more when it comes to moderating a forum like this. Yes, respond to complaints about defamatory or false allegations promptly and definitively. If a coach complains about false information here, deal with it. But if that coach wants you to censor criticism about him? Tell him to grow some balls and take a hike.

Plus, it is true ... the more you control the content around here, the more you own it.

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Re: Post Policy

Post by admin »

From where I'm sitting, this is a party. FanLax happens to own the house where the party is occurring. But FanLax is not responsible for the actions of the people within the party. Within the party, there's a group over here that swears a lot. Another that discuss politics and can get pretty loud. Another group only discusses their HS team. And, though I may not want to join any of these discussions, I 100% understand why each exists. And each fulfills a legitimate need. To each their own. With this in mind, I think we should be careful about being heavy-handed. For heaven's sake, I mean, this is a party. I might ask the swearers to talk by the pool (i.e. We can create an R rated category/thread) but I think we should be careful about being too controlling. With this said, while I'm not responsible for what comes out of Joe Lacrosse's mouth, there are words and sentences I, and I'm sure I'm not alone, don't want in our house. e.g. I have a low tolerance for bigotry. If someone's in my house throwing around the N-word, he's definitely not invited to the next party and, all but certainly, he'll be precluded from the current one. i.e. I do not like the idea of having a thread with a warning so Joe Lacrosse can share his theory about how Muslims are biologically blood thirsty. Joe should save that for his White Nationalist party. Though I could be wrong, I think we'd all agree that blatant bigotry is not welcome within our house, our party. One warning. Second time, you're out. And, depending on the comment, I'm not even sure there should be a warning. But as we move further along the spectrum, I struggle to come up with things that shouldn't be allowed within FanLax. White Supremacy memes. Porn. (As famously spoken to within a court of law, drawing a line re: lascivious posts and pics is not simple to define. But I'm sure we'll be able to. And, when in doubt, send the dudes with the questionable memes to talk by the pool.) But, literally and metaphorically, besides the N-word, murderous threats, and Stormy Daniels' greatest hits, I'm not sure what should be outright banned or, for that matter, edited/deleted.
Speculate without any evidence that a coach is about to be fired? Yeah, intervene.
Vigorously advocate that a coach be fired? That’s very different.
This is a good example. Should Sam Barney be banned for repeatedly lying? Should his lying posts be removed? What about putting a **This claim is unfounded** label or something similar on the post. Or, why intervene at all? If we put it on the homepage, That I understand as a mistake as we aren't a parody site, etc. But within the forum, Why not let Sam Barney espouse his Coach Laserlight theories? I get it, fact vs. opinion. But are Sam Barney's posts really fact? I mean, for heaven's sake, he's Sam Barney. Sam lies a lot. To state the obvious, it's 2018. We live in an age of alternative facts. I'm not so sure that we're responsible for Sam Barney's posts.
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Re: Post Policy

Post by admin »

Doc, I'm curious what you think about this. After looking at the LaxPower fine print before it went dark, I think we have a legitimate claim to post the old forum posts within FanLax. AT LEAST the posts where the people who posted the original posts give us permission. According to LaxPower, the poster owns/co-owns the verbiage within the post. With this being the case, why can't i post all my posts within FanLax? I already copy-and-pasted all my Fantasy Lacrosse posts. And i'd be astounded if this merited a yellow flag. So why isn't this the case for you and everyone who wants his or her posts posted. Obviously, even if we're 100% right, we don't want to be sued. But maybe there's a way to protect us both personally and professionally and, even better, a way to make it clear that these are our posts and they, Active or otherwise, is wasting their time.

Please reply within this thread.
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Ellis
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Re: Post Policy

Post by Ellis »

Just wanted to drop in to say "hello:- and also:

Schieße auf das Glas!

Now who's gonna sign up as Argyle??? I need a driver, and... Christmas is coming!

Image


Welcome to the party, pal!!!
"Hey, I negotiate million dollar deals for breakfast. I can handle these clowns."
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thatsmell
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Re: Post Policy

Post by thatsmell »

Noticed a number of links, I'll share the instructions for embedding Youtube videos into posts:

1) Copy and past your favorite link from Youtube to Fanlax:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0

2) Highlight the digits at the end of the web address after "v=" with your curser:

9bZkp7q19f0

3) Click that little "youtube" button above the text box. It will insert brackets and code around the highlighted digits.

4) Delete the rest of the Youtube web address.

5) Click submit.

6) Enjoy "Gangam Style."



7) Repeat
I never knew no Godfather. I got my own family, Senator."
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Re: Post Policy

Post by admin »

a post about post policy.
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Re: Post Policy

Post by admin »

Two more issues float to the surface... Profanity and People who want to avoid politics.
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Re: Post Policy

Post by admin »

Almost forgot. Saw a piece in The Economist this weekend. Talked about the laws associated with the owners of social media websites and others posting within it. The laws surrounding this scenario relieves the owners of all liability. The jist of the article was how social media today is very different than when these laws were established. i.e. The number of eople on Facebook today is enormous. When these laws were made, a fraction of today. Bottomline, there's a high correlation between liability and size of the audience. And our audience is vert different than Facebooks. plus, the piece is speaking to shoulds. the laws are still on Mark Zuckerberg's side.
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Re: Post Policy

Post by ChairmanOfTheBoard »

admin wrote:Almost forgot. Saw a piece in The Economist this weekend. Talked about the laws associated with the owners of social media websites and others posting within it. The laws surrounding this scenario relieves the owners of all liability. The jist of the article was how social media today is very different than when these laws were established. i.e. The number of eople on Facebook today is enormous. When these laws were made, a fraction of today. Bottomline, there's a high correlation between liability and size of the audience. And our audience is vert different than Facebooks. plus, the piece is speaking to shoulds. the laws are still on Mark Zuckerberg's side.
been telling people this for 15 years. only after the cambridge analytica debacle did i start doing the toldyaso.

it used to be that these data miners fought for your infomation; now people freely give it away. and dont really know that they are.

responses i usually get: it's my data; i have it set to private; i can take it down at any time; i dont really care what they do with my data
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Re: Post Policy

Post by admin »

i'm sure my posting this will back fire but... Since we set the posting rules (i.e. We adopted lacrosse rules for our website), we've had no incidents to speak of. For what it's worth.
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Re: Post Policy

Post by WOMBAT, Mod Emeritus »

admin wrote:i'm sure my posting this will back fire but... Since we set the posting rules (i.e. We adopted lacrosse rules for our website), we've had no incidents to speak of. For what it's worth.
Agreed. Been pretty calm, except for the inability to tease the kid who packed up all of his toys and went home to mommy!
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Re: Post Policy

Post by admin »

Post-er posts a post with a link to an article about 3 D1 players who are accused of playing a role in the death of another. the piece includes a picture of these three young men. the link is to a piece that's "public", the accusations are true/real, but, at this point, these are just accusations. i.e. These are young men who may be 100% innocent and their only crime is being accused of committing a crime.

The question is... Legitimate post? Undeniably, it doesn't make these three boys look good. But is that reason enough to remove the post? (For now, I've removed the link.)
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Re: Post Policy

Post by WOMBAT, Mod Emeritus »

admin wrote:Post-er posts a post with a link to an article about 3 D1 players who are accused of playing a role in the death of another. the piece includes a picture of these three young men. the link is to a piece that's "public", the accusations are true/real, but, at this point, these are just accusations. i.e. These are young men who may be 100% innocent and their only crime is being accused of committing a crime.

The question is... Legitimate post? Undeniably, it doesn't make these three boys look good. But is that reason enough to remove the post? (For now, I've removed the link.)
I believe LP’s policy would have let the link stand.

If there were any posts prior to a link / source being posted, those speculative posts would have been axed as rumors.

But once a link was posted, discussion could follow.

IIRC.

So, if you axed the link but let posts on the subject still stand, you’ve sort of done the opposite of how LP would have handled it.

I’m not being argumentative, critical, etc. Just trying to relay what I recall to help you out.
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Matnum PI
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Re: Post Policy

Post by Matnum PI »

There's been no real discussion about it.

While LP's policy included posting not discussing, etc., I think LP's policy also involved, so to speak, nothing negative. With this said, I'm not sure how important LP's policies are for FanLax. It's important to live and learn but I never looked at LP's policies and thought, That is a really good post policy. Personally, I think if information is public information, it should be fair game. It doesn't mean you need to believe it. But if the information is available to the world at large, it should be available to us. Alternatively, if I decide to post a picture of three college kids with a caption saying, These three boys stole my bicycle!, I wouldn't call this public information and I would think it appropriate to remove the post. Also, along the same lines, this is a discussion board. We're here to discuss lacrosse and otherwise. I think we need to be very careful about saying, You cannot discuss that. We don't want to defame people, etc. and... Discussion is good. Even if it's about a sticky subjective.
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