Complaint about the FULL NAME rule on the BOI.

[Lucille]

For some it’s all about sensationalism and how to climb the ladder of success.

Success means different things to different people.

I think of success , in terms of Fauna, as helping others get their start in this hobby, providing with writing and polls some threads where people can relax and talk about their non reptile lives and get to know one another and be friends, and learning all I can from those here who have experience and knowledge.

Success is also participating in relevant BOI threads to be able to help reduce the crooks in the hobby.

When you look at success in general for me it turns out not to be too different than the success here: integrity, helping people, encouraging friendship, and making the world a better place.

I can't see why people would come out against principles like those, and I would hope that we would in fact stand up and be counted among those who espouse those principles. There are enough people out there trying to take our hobby from us, we need to stick together and be friends, not foes.

 

[Lucille]

The full name rule is set in stone.

Anyone who has ANY doubts, check out my warning point.....

 

[The BoidSmith]

Success means different things to different people.

Exactly! There’s a few that measure it in terms of their popularity. The use of profanity and attacks on other members “for fun” was commonplace before Rich tightened even further the “strict enforcement of the rules”. The more praise they received for their actions the more ruthless their replies became, in some sort of positive (actually negative for the site) feedback. Every system has its flaws and it’s easy to criticize without offering solutions. History has shown that those that have come here “for the fun only” ended having the least fun of all, it’s just a matter of time.

Regards

 

[Lucille]

History has shown that those that have come here “for the fun only” ended having the least fun of all, it’s just a matter of time.

I wish someone would speed up the clock a little, those folk have made a misery for too many.
Not to change the subject, or maybe it is sort of on topic, why can't the people who want to be nasty just go to Hell? They can duke it out there and say whatever their cruel and fractious minds come up with, leaving the rest of us to have a good place to discuss reptiles and the other nice amenities on the board. (My forums, for instance, lol ).

I have for many many years been part of a gardening board. When someone gets out of line there, they are sent to Disney every time they post until the Webmaster thinks they got the message.
Really.
When you press the 'post' button you somehow end up at the Disney site. Unique. Effective. Funny as heck.

Here, there is actually a place custom made for people, they do not have to be sent, they can walk in under their own steam, why are they mainstreaming their nastiness instead of taking it to Hell?

 

[WebSlave]

Rich, I really hate that this is creating so much grief for you. I understand that you've taken a lot of garbage over things on the site, which would make anyone defensive. I'm sorry things had reached a point that you were ashamed of this site.

Just please keep in mind that of the active members of this site, the ones that are here for the drama, or the fun and games, or to just start trouble, are in the vast minority. They'll never be completely eliminated, but there's not really much danger of the inmates running the asylum.

Many of the people that debate with you, that challenge you, that are open enough to disagree with you publicly, are the ones that care about the future of this site.

Perhaps so, but I had come to the inescapable conclusion that not all members on this site had it's best interests at heart. The best way I could determine to nip that sort of thing was by cracking down HARD on the rules here and if not eliminate those people completely, at least try to neutralize the damage they were causing as much as possible. When I began to get correspondence from people saying they were leaving this site because of the antics of some of the members antagonizing and belittling them, then obviously it became time for me to step up to the plate and do something about that problem.

Anyone can challenge my methods, but it depends on how you do it as to how I were perceive it. Argument and discussion is OK. Attacking me is not OK. If you come across acrimoniously, don't be shocked if I turn around and give you the same with both barrels. I am human too, you know. If you expect more then that from me, then I am sorry, but you apparently mistake me for someone else. If you continually bring up the same tired arguments time and time again, even after I have answered with the same tired answers time and time again, then I am afraid I will come to the conclusion that you just are not truly interested in hearing the answer, but instead are engaging in an effort to needle me and attempting to fritter away my time in useless banter. If need be, I will take steps to end that in whatever means seems most effective.

If someone truly cares about this site, I think I will be able to figure out who they are by their actions, not what they may say about those actions. No, I don't expect everyone to be "yes men", but please don't cross the line that separates constructive criticism from destructive sniping. There are members on this site who only have something negative to say whenever they join in some thread about this site or my actions. After a while, the question naturally arises "why are they still here, then?" Indeed, an interesting question to ponder.......

 

[ms_terese]

There are members on this site who only have something negative to say whenever they join in some thread about this site or my actions. After a while, the question naturally arises "why are they still here, then?" Indeed, an interesting question to ponder.......

Probably for the same reason that you didn't just shut down the site when it was causing you nothing but grief and costing you money. There was a time when, accurately or not, you didn't see a positive for yourself in keeping this site going. Although the level of investment of members is certainly not the same as yours, many people have put alot of themselves into this site. They've answered questions, they've coached people through problems, they've bought and sold, they've developed new relationships, etc. Just because you're not thrilled with the President, you don't necessarily move to another country. You stay and argue, and keep paying your taxes. Yes, you have to abide by the rules, but you sure can voice your opinion about the ones you don't think are right, and complain about the people making them.

 

[WebSlave]

Probably for the same reason that you didn't just shut down the site when it was causing you nothing but grief and costing you money. There was a time when, accurately or not, you didn't see a positive for yourself in keeping this site going. Although the level of investment of members is certainly not the same as yours, many people have put alot of themselves into this site. They've answered questions, they've coached people through problems, they've bought and sold, they've developed new relationships, etc. Just because you're not thrilled with the President, you don't necessarily move to another country. You stay and argue, and keep paying your taxes. Yes, you have to abide by the rules, but you sure can voice your opinion about the ones you don't think are right, and complain about the people making them.

Again, it depends on your presentation. If you piss off the President enough, you may find yourself being audited by the IRS every year. You may find it advantageous, in such a case, to move out of the USA. I don't know if the President has the power to deport someone out of the country, but I'm sure he would if he could in some cases.

In the case of this site, I have my own tools to deal with people whom it becomes apparent really do not have this site's best intentions at heart. But unlike the President, I can deport people at will when necessary. Prior to that I will make it uncomfortable for them to "live" here and likely choose to move out under their own steam. Under the circumstances, the best way to do that is to prevent them from doing the things I find most damaging here, and that they find most enjoyable to engage in.

Yes, you can complain about rules you don't like, but there will come a point where asking the same question and getting the same answer must end. If you choose not to recognize that point, then what am I supposed to do? You leave me no choice but to stop what has become open and apparent harassment. What is to be gained by treating it otherwise? Do you believe you can wear me down to where I will suddenly accept your minority opinion as the correct path to take? Sorry, but it just doesn't work that way. State your case, engage in a discussion about it, then accept the results. Case in point, I recently started a thread about opening up a $1 per day BOI posting access plan. It was thoroughly shot down by the members participating. I accept that view, and that is that. It was not a good idea. End of story. If someone else had brought this up and I had chosen "NO" as the poll has shown, what would be the purpose of that same person bringing it up time and time again? This exact same sort of thing has happened here many times. And yet people will get miffed when I cut it short for umpteenth time.

Your stating an opinion does not force me to agree with you if I find you argument lacking in convincing evidence. Nor do you have to accept my opinion either, but you do have either accept those conditions in force to participate here or go elsewhere. Your stating the same arguments many times does not move you from being a minority opinion into a majority one. My disagreeing does not mean I don't understand you, it just means I don't agree with you. Saying it over and over again will not change my opinion. I realize in some instances it is an effort to try to drum up some support for that minority opinion, thinking not enough people are aware of what you have said previously, but be realistic about it. If you don't stop beating the dead horse, eventually it will begin to stink enough that you will leave me no choice but to do something about it to end it. The point of all this is to ask everyone to recognize that if you force my hand to have to do that, then I will.

 

[WebSlave]

Exactly! There’s a few that measure it in terms of their popularity. The use of profanity and attacks on other members “for fun” was commonplace before Rich tightened even further the “strict enforcement of the rules”. The more praise they received for their actions the more ruthless their replies became, in some sort of positive (actually negative for the site) feedback. Every system has its flaws and it’s easy to criticize without offering solutions. History has shown that those that have come here “for the fun only” ended having the least fun of all, it’s just a matter of time.

Regards

Exactly! And one of the main reasons I greatly diluted the karma system from a major "scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" situation to one where someone has to use quite a bit of care to not squander their limited capability of granting karma points to someone. And definitely there was a whole lot of feedback being built up by antagonistic individuals agreeing with and rewarding those people acting in like kind on this site. By reviewing the logs of all the karma points being assessed, this fact was glaringly obvious to me when I decided to put a halt to it. I have actually had some of the worst offenders throw the fact of their exceptionally high karma point rating in my face as evidence that what they were doing here was completely acceptable by the majority of members.

But that was a rather easy problem to fix. Not all of them are going to be that way, unfortunately.

 

[ms_terese]

I was only answering your question about why people stay on the site.

I'm not really sure who all these people are that you're intent on getting out of here, but it's your site and you can "deport" them as you wish You don't have to explain it, justify it, or announce it. Do what you have to do.

 

[WebSlave]

I was only answering your question about why people stay on the site.

I'm not really sure who all these people are that you're intent on getting out of here, but it's your site and you can "deport" them as you wish You don't have to explain it, justify it, or announce it. Do what you have to do.

Sorry, but no, I don't work that way. I like to try to be as certain as possible that no other option is available before doing something that drastic. I like to give someone sufficient warning to be able to correct mannerisms that may just be a mistake in judgement before kicking them off the site for good. The warnings should be pretty clear to someone, especially now that there is a price tag associated with them. There is no way someone can claim that someone didn't know that what they were doing is not appreciated nor acceptable on this site. Right now there are approximately 50 members with 25 warning points or more on their record. Many of those are now gone, either voluntarily or involuntarily. The $10 fine is an excellent method to warn someone and at the same time ask them to consider whether they are willing to try to change their ways in order to come back. Before the fine was implemented, there was no penalty at all for members to just ignore the warning points. Teeth were lacking, so it could be ignored at will with no likelihood that further violations would result in anything more harsh.

But perhaps you are correct. My CornSnakes.com message board is growing in leaps and bounds and will shortly overtake FaunaClassifieds in number of posts made. The ratio of active members to registered members is far above what is on this site. If I were to put as much effort into expanding that site as I have spent here, I imagine in a few years, that site would completely overshadow this one. And my method of enforcing rules (which basically there are none stated) is to just immediately ban anyone who gets out of line. Occasionally I will make the ban only a 1 week ban, but it depends on the context of why they are getting banned. No warnings, no bickering over those warnings, just bam, they are gone. So yes, perhaps I need to give a couple of things more thought........

 

[Lucille]

Sorry, but no, I don't work that way. I like to try to be as certain as possible that no other option is available before doing something that drastic..............

And my method of enforcing rules (which basically there are none stated) is to just immediately ban anyone who gets out of line.

I think the middle ground you have been treading here might be best for Fauna. Prior to your new rules, when there were few consequences, there were miserable people suffering at the hands of those who just wanted to jerk people around for no good reason other than to have some 'fun'. I am glad you have changed the rules to help prevent that sort of misery.

But if you were to immediately ban anyone who got out of line I would be gone because I violated the very rule this thread refers to, and that would make me very sad because my failure to abide by your rule was more of an oversight than any intentional stepping across a line in the sand. I have not made the same error after receiving my warning point so it did exactly what it was supposed to do, warn.

I think that as rules are firmly enforced people come to accept them and there is less aggravation in enforcing them. I lived through raising teenagers and they will test every rule made for them, and they were a royal pain in the behind for a while.
But they knew and respected certain inviolate rules. From the time they were wee ones, they knew that without a seat belt on, the car wasn't going to move period and I never varied that rule and it wasn't long before they never broke it.

But I did have to warn them, and tell them, at first.
And you have a sliding scale up to and including immediate removal if behavior warrants that sanction. But I do like the warning system for relatively innocent one time mistakes, and I would hope that neither here or at cornsnake.com would anyone ever be gone for such trifling errors done a single time, you are a fair person and I think that minor infractions deserve a warning.

"I like to give someone sufficient warning to be able to correct mannerisms that may just be a mistake in judgement before kicking them off the site for good."

I think small infractions deserve warnings. I think the posts that jerk people around, make them miserable, escalate the situation and are just flat mean do not. Even when my kids were small they had enough sense not to talk certain ways in front of certain people so there is just no excuse and those people need to go elsewhere, or to Hell.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Dennis Hultman]

This person is back. See links.
http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/showthread.php?p=442405&posted=1#post442405
http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=89187

 

[High End Herps Inc]

Related to the topic

I just read the first few pages of this thread and it awaked an issue that had me pretty harelipped in the past concerning the full name on the post subject.

Last year, or perhaps earlier this year either my wife or I one posted in a thread (can't remember who or what thread it's been so long). Anyhoo, the next day we found a warning point on our record and the explanation was that our full name was required. It struck me as very odd since both of our names were and still are part of our automatic signiture at the bottom.

I don't remember which moderator gave the warning but I don't feel it is right or justified to have a warning point on our name when both of our names were and are on the auto sig and we are the only two that post on fauna. I really would like it if the warning point could be removed as we strive to always have a perfect record and it is a blemmish of sorts. Where does a feller go to contest these things? Is there such a place or service?

David Beauchemin

 

[Dennis Hultman]

David, look at your post above, if you click on the "1" by warning points it will show who gave it to you and why. It also links back to the post.

Using one name in your profile and another in your signature violates the TOS of the BOI. In the event of two people sharing an account, each post must be signed as to who is actually making the post.