sand box

CNN puts them on the website almost immediately.

So maybe they could have a whole section with the Blut, DrkAngel, MJSFoto, Rumme, all the people more interested in trouble, just giving it the name the Sandbox. All these posts recently that seem to be there long enough to show how bad the OP is before it's locked would go there.

https://medium.com/@jeffmaysh/hysteria-high-how-demons-destroyed-the-miami-aerospace-academy-jeff-maysh-5a31b4770f29

emirikol-the-chaotic.jpg
 
So we're not going to see how the movie ends, even though TONIGHT is Halloween!

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/31/opinions/halloween-witches-were-women-fighting-power-kerr/index.html
 
So I had the moment coming out of the grocery store that best illustrated the 'Sand Box' issue. Two boys in the shopping cart, the biggest but still little pushing. The Dad says 'Be careful,' the one pushing asks "Why?" Basically because you're pushing that cart right at ME! And I had to jump out of the way. The kid just wants to play in the sand box, eh?

So when I talk about a whole sand box section for those guys to just post whatever they want, that's what THIS section was supposed to be. They just had to be too bad for it. Some to the extreme that they're not even here to discuss or just be toxic, they're here to HATE. Oh gee, we no longer have the thread to put the polls in now that Tulsi Gabbard has surpassed Kamala Harris and the consequently withdrawn Beto O'Rourke. Because one of them just had to work his hate into it.

And the guy who started it all, the president who made hate fashionable, is now whining because his own behavior has turned on him. The thing he encouraged to get himself supported into the presidency for 8 years, of course inspiring it by doing it himself, is now directed at him, so he whines.

What happens if this gets brought up around the sand boxers? Just another opportunity for them to hate. But are they going to hate against it or hate in favor of it? They sure aren't going to let anyone say anything they disagree with on it, are they?

[youtube]UyjZ4SGjxJs[/youtube]
 
I could call Obama a lot of things in earnest: feckless, noncommittal, reneging. I have to wonder how many drugs it takes to see the guy as someone who "made hate fashionable". Are you talking about how he became a lightning rod for right-wing haters and racists?
 
Balmorhea said:
I could call Obama a lot of things in earnest: feckless, noncommittal, reneging. I have to wonder how many drugs it takes to see the guy as someone who "made hate fashionable". Are you talking about how he became a lightning rod for right-wing haters and racists?
Click to expand...

No, it takes drugs to not notice that he was the hater in chief, having so many an 'Hour of hate' for the day early in his presidency. Oh, . how many sleeping pills to stay in bed late on Saturday and miss his weekly address for six years with his recalcitrant hatefulness, oh so fashionable to his followers up until the Republicans held the majority in the House and Senate and he turned to begging to not be left out. Oh, he felt so irrelevant.

But the followers are like the dog that learned to get out of the backyard before it was fixed, now just wanting to have the same fun as before. So they turned their hate back on itself and are going after the ringleader. And he's feeling sorry for himself.

I always wonder what it's like for people who don't bother to learn anything but try to pretend they know what's going on. Certainly they at least feel strange, faces come out of the rain, noone remembers your name. . . .
 
I guess your drug of choice is horseshit.

Happy smoking!
 
Balmorhea said:
I guess your drug of choice is horseshit.

Happy smoking!
Click to expand...

I guess your drug of choice is being hateful to honest people. Happy sand box.

You should see the CNN story where the group is talking about the impeachment and the wannabee impeachers are being hateful and talking over those against it and the woman says "THIS is why I support Trump. . . ." YOU helped make Trump president with your hateful behavior, as you shall now help KEEP him president. Don't you just HATE that.
 
marty said:
marty said:
Suggestion to moderators. Internet forum's are like children playing in a sand box. Might be best to just let the children play, argue, learn, and be children.
Click to expand...

I miss DrkAngel's Saturday Night Live YouTube videos about Trump.
Click to expand...

It's all fun and games until it turns into a flame war and everyone's unhappy and everyone's divided over a lot of crap that has nothing to do with building low impact transport solutions. Which it often does, when we allow the children to play. Then it's a burden on the moderation team, making them wonder why it is that they wake up to perform this job for a princely sum of $0/month.

Political discussions should be a side dish, not a main course that you come here again and again for. There's hundreds of other places to scream and hit others. What are you here for?

And look, we've already got some bad behavior on this thread already. That was fast. Remember how even OT has a rule against personal attacks?
 
neptronix said:
There's hundreds of other places to scream and hit others. What are you here for?
Click to expand...

To NOT be at the hundreds of places with thousands of screamers? And LESS shill's, don't doubt they're here as they are everywhere but not so much of them in these obscure venues. And even the nonshills THINK they are shills on so many of the obvious sites.

Actually the nonpolitical sites are the chance to here from at least SOME real people. I might never have guessed there'd be so many people on ES following Alex Jones of all people, but they admitted it here.

neptronix said:
And look, we've already got some bad behavior on this thread already. That was fast. Remember how even OT has a rule against personal attacks?
Click to expand...

Too toxic for toxic, but you also have this in, say, the 'Wind/Solar/Nuke' thread and other troll catchers where they are 'Alternativer Than Thou' on a regular basis with less moderation than Toxic.

The idea was to unload at least some of that in toxic, but they spread it everywhere. For me 'The Sand Box' is gonna be the imaginary area where they go when they're too toxic for toxic They've run out of people to fight with in real life, so they get on ES and hate one another on hub motor vs. mid drive. I of course don't see the fun in THAT, either.

neptronix said:
Then it's a burden on the moderation team, making them wonder why it is that they wake up to perform this job for a princely sum of $0/month.
Click to expand...

Oh, that's what they call a commitment to excellence . Yeah, I know, the haters are gonna want to do some hating on THAT one, but where could I answer that question if not in toxic?
 
Fine points. But at the same time, we have lots of bad behavior festering here that spills out into the forum and then makes the forum less useful. Sure, it's nice to talk to people in this space about offtopic stuff, and that's a benefit to the members here that i'd like to keep,

Enforcing the no ad hominem rule isn't popular at all. At the moderation team, we still try the soft hand approach, then the hammer later. 95% of the time, a frequent violator is unwilling to cooperate, which is really sad, because we lose some of our longterm members in the process. Somehow they get the impression that they deserve to be treated different, which shouldn't be the case at all. Everyone here needs to be subject to the same rules, including me.

If we enforced it to the letter, we'd be clearing out a lot of people :confused: :shock:

One problem is that this forum has a bit of a toxic culture and it's easy to get dragged into that. In a way, it's a trap. I don't like it but we haven't had a good agreement on how to deal with it. And some members also want things to remain the way they are.. ( yet these people don't have the responsibility we have as moderators! )

A deeper level of hell wouldn't help :lol:

Where's the balance? how can we have non-insulting discussions on difficult topics?

I want to answer these questions next year, because business as usual isn't working for the members or the moderators and that's not good.
 
How about just adding *and enforcing without exception* a rule for NO discussions about politics, religion, as those are two things that almost always devolve rapidly.

The best forums I have been a part of have such rules, applied as needed, harshly if necessary, and they stay good places to have on-topic discussions, partly because a lot of those insisting on P/R/etc arguments end up being people that break up or otherwise cause problems in on-topic (for the particular forum) discussions, and those people go away (or are made to) when they have no "fun".
 
amberwolf said:
How about just adding *and enforcing without exception* a rule for NO discussions about politics, religion, as those are two things that almost always devolve rapidly.
Click to expand...

I think it's worthwhile to know who's an irrational crackpot, so I can presume other input from those participants is errant unless proven otherwise.
 
neptronix said:
Fine points. But at the same time, we have lots of bad behavior festering here that spills out into the forum . . . .
Click to expand...

I really don't agree with that, those people are what they are and they are going on whether there's a toxic section or not. Whether they post in it or not. That's not the same as festering in one spot. The idea is supposed to be like having a smoking section and they use it, it's not the smoking sections fault if they don't. And they don't, do they?

Oh, I'm reminded of the movie 'Mean Streets' where the guy is called a "Mooke," so he becomes quick to call others a Mooke. I work in a field full of people whining about professionalism, leaving IMDB.com to make a point that those doing the whining are usually the most unprofessional people you meet. Crackpots are quick to call others crackpots hoping to cover up their own knowledge they are crackpots. But again, that's just who these people are, it's not a section of the board making them that way. Ultimately there isn't really an 'Answer' to human behavior.
 
Banned
Chalo
DrkAngel
eTrike
LockH
Nelson37
rumme
safe
swbluto
Suspect there are more people that I don't know about. I am sad. These people were like friends to me. Keep banning people and there will only be one person playing in the sand box.

Note to the moderator who is doing all this banning, locking of threads, and deleting forum content, most recent is the topic containing my thoughts about Swbluto. If you can't stand the heat. Get out of the kitchen.

When one person has trouble with lots of other people. That one person is usually the problem.

Neptronix, you doing good with the technical computer phpbb side of the forum. Thanks for that.
 
That's a list of people who constantly misbehaved and caused problems on this forum. The more recent ones absolutely deserved it and were given multiple warnings.

If these are/were your friends on the forum, instead of people who come here to share and prompt knowledge, then i'll tell ya right now, you may be alone one day :lol:

Drkangel is not banned BTW.

You're welcome on the technical help.

amberwolf said:
How about just adding *and enforcing without exception* a rule for NO discussions about politics, religion, as those are two things that almost always devolve rapidly.

The best forums I have been a part of have such rules, applied as needed, harshly if necessary, and they stay good places to have on-topic discussions, partly because a lot of those insisting on P/R/etc arguments end up being people that break up or otherwise cause problems in on-topic (for the particular forum) discussions, and those people go away (or are made to) when they have no "fun".
Click to expand...

:bigthumb: :bigthumb: :bigthumb: :bigthumb:

I did that on endless sphere facebook and was constantly thanked by our members for being the only sane place on FB to discuss ebikes without lots of drama.

As a result the place was incredibly easy to moderate. We'd give people a little leeway ( OK to discuss Trump's tarrifs, not okay to go on a tirade about how democrats/republicans are the devil/hitler/etc ) but people generally knew where the line was drawn.

In my opinion, less drama makes a place like this a lot more useful as an electric vehicle forum.

What i noticed is that everyone who wanted to come in and scream about politics had nothing better to do and made that their primary purpose in the group. Their post history was almost always devoid of discussion about evehicles.

If i had sole control over this place, i'd institute a no politics rule yesterday. But I cannot get a majority of people to agree. But without that rule, something has to give; we have to change our policies. I am strong on free speech but from a social cohesion and moderation aspect, some forms of speech cause an inordinate amount of problems, and have value for very few people. I'd call political discussions a 'negative value' aspect of this site, IE it subtracts from what most people get out of ES, instead of adds to it.

We wouldn't need any rules if people could just behave. But we don't live in an ideal world, do we ;)
 
Dauntless said:
neptronix said:
Fine points. But at the same time, we have lots of bad behavior festering here that spills out into the forum . . . .
Click to expand...

I really don't agree with that, those people are what they are and they are going on whether there's a toxic section or not. Whether they post in it or not. That's not the same as festering in one spot. The idea is supposed to be like having a smoking section and they use it, it's not the smoking sections fault if they don't. And they don't, do they?
Click to expand...

Our moderation logs would say otherwise, about the spillover problem. Create a smoking section and you have some percentage of your forum come over and pick up a smoking habit in a moment of weakness. Hell, i've even fallen for getting wrapped up in OT discussions and getting emotionally charged over it and becoming a smoker myself. Then i had someone point out that my behavior needs to be a notch above everyone else's. I saw how easy it would be to become a rogue user of ES..
 
marty said:
When one person has trouble with lots of other people. That one person is usually the problem.
Click to expand...

Whoa, that's a rash oversimplification when the ONE PERSON has to be the one to deal with whatever unsavory element comes along. It becomes inevitable that one has problems with many, or even like here where it's not that he really has the problem himself. . . .

I read that list, remembering:

Chalo talking about using guns to masterbate. I reminded him to make sure it's unloaded. Someone said something like "Jesus SAVE ME!" That guy could ramp up and spew some real hate in a rather entitled manner. Like a microcosm of the whole snowflake movement.

Lock banned? It could get strange with him, but even when he seemed in a bad mood I don't recall seeing---Well, the moderators could have beat me to it.

Rumme. I'd still be curious to know what his REGULAR name is. I'd be amazed if it wasn't someone posting quite differently under his regular name. Maybe even his regular sparring partner. That's different from the smoking analogy.

I remember Safe from other forums. Dang, where WASN'T he banned from? Again, no smoke from that one.

If I understood the real issue taken with Bluto was his propensity to start talking about violence, luscious violence. You just get concerned about new people to the forum seeing that. Among other things. You don't want to be the interviewed when he shoots the governor and they say YOU encouraged him.

Then there's people that visibly were just looking for trouble. You could have a longer list. They get to create a lot of it usually, hard to be too sympathetic. Though I have to admit it remains rather entertaining as long as you're not the target. So it's one thing to say 'I tracked them making trouble AFTER. . . .' but still, it's just the personality, only a coincidence the order they hit forums. Or even if they planned to go to which one first. Still doesn't fit the smoking analogy for me.

And I definitely appreciate the whole thing, beyond just the technical. I was a moderator once. So hard to realize when troublemakers in the community turn out to be people you know. I also wonder which banned already has the next name and never misses a beat. . . .
 
I moderate in a group that gets a lot of "professional" trolls and shills, real dirty stuff that seems to be a full time job for many of them and strangely enough rules seem to cause more problems than they solve. When there are clear rules they find ways to do their thing while staying just within them, doing away with the rules almost eliminated that problem. That probably wouldn't work with a large number of mods, for example leaving everything to the moderators discretion on all of Reddit would cause way more problems than it solves but when there's a small number of mods who all know the difference between "illegal" and "wrong" then it seems to work well for that particular type of troll.

For the regular kind, the ones that seem to like to argue just for the sake of it, a reputation seems to help. On one forum I'm on posts have "like" and "dislike" buttons, too many dislikes and a post gets hidden (with a "click to view" button) and it works fairly well. It doesn't seem to get abused much either, I'd expected the more organised groups of them to use it to hide anything worth reading and they tried for a while but didn't have the numbers to overwhelm the "likes" (min 20 posts to "like/dislike" iirc).

Btw, reputation systems are the next big thing for online discussions imho along with many other things, all the way up to global politics. We're only seeing the very early development stages at the mo, they wont really take off until online identities become established and that's some way off yet.
 
That sounds like a real pain in the ass, especially when the trolls start to get creative and find ways to skirt rules. Then you're in a difficult position of not wanting to look like the asshole moderator because the only way to justify chucking the frocker is an arbitrary action.

In that case, when they know the rules, but still want to be disruptive and produce a lot of grief, instead of playing the cat and mouse game and tacking on bizarre rules just for them, i consider this:

As a whole, does the user subtract from the value of the forum more than add it? And do they have a long pattern of doing so? does it seem like they're using the forum for their own selfish purposes and not being a member of the community? does it seem like the forum is worse off for having this member in it?

A person who is new and constantly asking questions doesn't fall into this rule. A person who has fallen on hard times and starts a thread to bitch and moan about his ex half the time doesn't fall into this rule either. it's when this becomes an overwhelming majority of what the user is doing, is when they edge into the category of toxic member. This person deserves plenty of warnings before something is done.

So for example, Dauntless rustles a lot of jimmies in political threads, but you can go through his post history and see him offering support to people or commenting on other stuff. An overzealous moderator might consider him a troll, but he's not. In fact, he's pretty darn good at not violating the ad hominem attacks rule.

Rumme did nothing but post in political threads and agitate people. How often did he positively contribute to discussion? very rarely! he never talked about ebikes here, really. So he went.

SWBluto was once a highly esteemed member of this forum but for the last few years, decided to turn this site into a journal of his mental health issues. Annoying, but not a big problem. Once he started talking about sociopathic / vile things, he was repeatedly warned to stop. He had to go once he repeatedly refused to listen to requests to stop.

These sorts of decisions are tough to make, but you have to make them. Otherwise the negative element takes over. And sometimes very good people have spurts of bad behavior, so there HAS to be wiggle room. Especially for long term members.

You can post rules but how you moderate sets the tone for what kind of behavior is actually allowable. The negative element takes notice, and the positive element does too. A well moderated forum without too many toxic elements is one that people will invest their time helping others and contribute to.

I take zero pleasure when i have to ban someone who was once good, but turned bad. It's like taking old yeller out back and putting a bullet in his brain. You'll never stop thinking about the good times when that dog didn't have rabies. One good example is Chalo - i'd love to have him back on the forum. But he simply wasn't willing to be nice to others, or even me, on my own build thread. The worst was that he was going after newbies..

Most moderators are either far too permissive, or absolute dictators because being fair and giving people chances is really effin' hard to do. It takes exponentially more emotional energy. But a community isn't worth participating in if moderation isn't fair.
 
I remember Bluto asking if he could insult people in PM's, since he couldn't on the board.

If you let them vote people off, the professional trolls and shills will use their multiple names they've registered to dictate the direction of the community. And during the election I was trying to keep in mind the party shills could arrive at any time or might already be here and I'd never know for sure. Then there are those who pretend to be for a sense of self importance.

Meanwhile, I'm sure I hold the record for people CLAIMING to have me on ignore but there they are, still responding. Then there are those told to but they just won't do it, can't stand the thought of missing something. Damn addicts.
 
marty said:
Banned
Chalo
DrkAngel
eTrike
LockH
Nelson37
rumme
safe
swbluto
Suspect there are more people that I don't know about. I am sad. These people were like friends to me. Keep banning people and there will only be one person playing in the sand box.

Note to the moderator who is doing all this banning, locking of threads, and deleting forum content, most recent is the topic containing my thoughts about Swbluto. If you can't stand the heat. Get out of the kitchen.

When one person has trouble with lots of other people. That one person is usually the problem.

Neptronix, you doing good with the technical computer phpbb side of the forum. Thanks for that.
Click to expand...

My thoughts.
Chalo - Loosing him is like loosing a encyclopedia of bicycle information. As to [using guns to masterbate] Does seen a bit weird to me, but isn't that normal behavior for people who live in Texas? If a newbie asks for help to electrify something and Chalo thinks it is a stupid idea. I see nothing wrong with Chalo saying what he thinks.

DrkAngel - Miss his input on political discussions.

eTrike - I look here Galileo/Newton agree-- 9/11 was an inside job! See quotes from eTrike. Looks like all his posts have disappeared. Same as Nelson37.

LockH - He was hard for me to understand. Same as Dauntless. Everyone is different. Banning him was just cruel.

Nelson37 - See https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=85056&hilit=moderators+deleting+forum+content&start=50#p1289388 Hope that never happens again.

rumme - Was he being paid to type positive stuff about Trump? Suspect that is how Trump won the election.

safe - Giving wrong information on electricity. That is not Safe.

swbluto - Other Toxic Discussions is now boring. Seems like Dauntless is playing all by himself in a sand box. I do understand that talk about causing harm to others is not cool.

Sorry to beat a dead horse.

Every now and then I see something really special here and I save it in my computer. From LockH's The Well Dressed Ebiker
920662_1008803465856024_26764039190174658_o.jpg
 
marty said:
Banned
DrkAngel
Click to expand...
:? Not banned, still posting regularly.
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=18233
 
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