Originally posted by: vijay
Well we are working on this but who is violating and making such privacy violations / threats and personal attacks? When the DT takes action against such people they are termed "biased" and called different names so just wanted to ask you does it not amounts to personal attack?
Yes much of the rules are somewhat an extension to the old rules. One has to see the same in which context the said content has been made. We DO NOT encourage members to post any sexually explicit or graphic content on the forums. And many things still can be discussed and post one's opinion without being "explicit".
Well again we do not allow "adult humor" as there is no end to where it can go and again that can also be "subjective" from person to person. As a website we never encouraged such content and it has been a policy decision from the beginning and its not something that has been introduced recently.
Well we are an Indian company and we have to be in compliance with the Indian laws. And as per the same any content which can be termed as "obscene material" or "sexually explicit act" in electronic form is not allowed and can attract penalty. This certainly exclude use of such material for eductation and awareness.
Well tell me one thing what if Celebrity X is a member of the forum? Should that member not be given the same privileges that is enjoyed by other members?
IMHO rules are never made in a way that you just protect one set of people (sitting behind anonymous IDs) who are allowed to abuse / ridicule others just cause they are your "members" against people who are not members but who visits the site for constructive feedback.
We welcome constructive criticism but one should be careful and not to make offensive / derogatory posts against anyone whether its a member or a celebrity.
Well its a challenge keeping MIDs off the forum and we are continuously working on ways to improve our system to fight this problem.
We are also looking at options where members will also get a chance to give their feedback on Moderators.
I hope I have answered much of your query and we appreciate that you took out time to post your feedback and suggestions and sharing your perspective.
Regards,
Thanks for your response Vijay. I think you are being a bit overtly defensive in trying to explain your decisions.
Let me try and simplify it. Your rules are too grey and ambiguous. "Explicit" and "Bashing" are two highly subjective issues. Every individual will have their own definition of this. IF has always had rules against "explicit" and "bashing", and as you explain there are good ideological reasons for it. However, from a pragmatic point of view subjective rules are not feasible.
Every member, every moderator, is going to interpret and expect implementation differently. This leaves plenty of room to clash. Everyone is going to find the DT too strict, too lenient or biased. To make matters worse each section implements these differently and members get more irritated and agitated at the inconsistency.
From the perspective of an ex-moderator, expecting us to implement subjective rules fairly, equitably and consistently is just darn expecting too much out of a human being who is merely volunteering time. I didn't like it at all when I had to play net nanny because some bashful person found an innocuous statement a bit too adult for their taste. Worst, I didn't like sifting through hundreds of reports and PMs because half the people are star struck kids and cannot stand a word against their celebrity, and another half are playground bullies who can't help but annoy the star struck kids.
Of course you can implement them half heartedly. Arbitrarily implement rules based on your subjective interpretation. That makes it robotic and easy – like a program spitting out – warn/don't warn. It can be unfair, impersonal and oblivious to genuine context. I won't blame the moderators at all. They would like to enjoy the forum too rather than spend time on issues. They are humans with subjective opinions and feelings as well. There are very few moderators who can be their objective best, spend time to listen to both sides of the issue, read through several pages of posts for genuine context and make the fairest decision.
If we want fair, equitable and consistent rule implementation there are only two pragmatic options.
1) Hire a few full time paid moderators who agree to an interpretation of "explicit" and "bashing" as spelled out by you Vijay and commit 8-12 hours of a day going through sections and implementing it.
2) Prohibit "po*nography" and "slander" which are both clearly legally defined and completely avoid messing with fuzzy subjective terms like "explicit" or "bashing"
If you don't choose either of these, it is going to be a vicious endless cycle. You will always have a major brouhaha, you will always have some members get upset and go bezerk, you will always have members and DT arguing over how a rule should be implemented or who was right/wrong, and you will always keep posting these rule updates which are starting to become a bit meaningless – its always a rehash of the same things. And honesty, forum moderators are not really there to act as net nannies or kindergarten teachers – but to simply ensure that the law is followed, no member is threatened, abused or harassed and privacy/security of everyone is upheld. The IF rules and regulations tend to take moderator time away from serious duty into trivial pursuits.
As a side note when it comes to MID and security, it would be helpful to know what specifically is being done rather than "we are trying". In that sense even members are "trying" to deal with it in their own way.
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