Re: policy on posting

[Guest guest]

Hi Clyde:

Well, I personally do not agree that that is a better idea. Most of

us are aware of what invariably happens on message boards that are

not strictly moderated. The discussion quickly becomes dominated by

the lowest common denominators and/or those with an interest to

promote. The result is that the serious people quickly start looking

for a different place to 'hang'.

This is especially true of health boards which, if not moderated by

someone with an understanding of what may be seriously credible and

what is not likely to be, quickly deteriorate into people who know

nothing (including some who are trolling for clients) giving advice

about serious health conditions to gullible and desperate people.

Naturally I do not see the posts Francesca prevents from being

posted. But I can say that I am very happy with the content of the

posts that do get through, as well as with the people who have found

the site content here worthwhile enough to drop in occasionally and

contribute. As I have said before, this place, within the internet,

is a small island of sanity in an ocean of _____________ (you fill

in the blank). I believe the policy here regarding moderation of

content is the reason.

There have been some examples here in the past year of the kinds

of 'problems' described above, even in this moderated environment.

jmo

Rodney.

> I have a better idea: Why not let the messages be posted, and let

> the group respond? This group is better able than any single

> individual to decide what posts are well-grounded in science. As

> you stated, " this group belongs to ALL of us. "

[Guest guest]

I agree 100% with the moderated format of this list, apppreciate it, and

beleive it is a job well done.

>>All I'm saying is to consider the people who make an effort to

contribute by writing a post, only to have the post disappear

without notice. They don't know what has happened, and by virtue of

the policy of deleting posts without notice, they might wonder if

they were censored.

A simple solution would be to notify the sender that their post is being

censored and why. This gives them the opportunity to reformat the post

and resubmit it.

However, I believe that already may happen.

Thanks

Jeff

[Guest guest]

I never said that I don't give notice to posters. Usually I do (I don't

keep records as that would be a monumental job). However a post that is

rejected DESERVES to NOT be responded to. The reason is that the person

can't be bothered adhering to the rules or reading the rules. Also anyone

reading this list regularly should understand what is required to post.

It seems to me that your gripe is a non-issue since I did not reject your

post and you never asked about it (til now). I had no way of knowing that

you sent a post which did not appear.

The Administrative post explaining our rules are automatically sent to all

new members and are posted to the board automatically by once every

two weeks, most recently: in post #17309 on January 31st. In addition to

this regular posting every two weeks, I often post repeating many of these

rules. So for that effort, not only by me, but by the other moderators, I

ask that people read them and adhere to them. Most of us find them pretty

simple to follow.

I do not keep a record of rejected posts. That would be impractical IMHO.

Since you have suggested it, would you like to do it?

on 2/9/2005 11:14 AM, Clyde at nash.p@... wrote:

>

> ----------------------------

> Well, I'm not mistaken (unless my post did indeed appear unbeknownst

> to me), as I clearly stated that my post might not have appeared

> because it disappeared into cyberspace. I did not assert that it

> was deleted, only that I was uncertain as to what happened to it.

>

> Here's my point: Your acknowledgement that you delete posts without

> notice to the posters, and without keeping records of the deletions,

> will put good faith posters whose messages don't appear into a state

> of uncertainty as to what happened to their messages.

>

> I have benefited from reading this list for a long time, and I

> appreciate the effort you give to make this list work. I don't want

> to be critical unless there is a chance that my viewpoint may be

> useful.

>

> All I'm saying is to consider the people who make an effort to

> contribute by writing a post, only to have the post disappear

> without notice. They don't know what has happened, and by virtue of

> the policy of deleting posts without notice, they might wonder if

> they were censored. That's what happened to me, and it has happened

> to others.

>

[Guest guest]

Thank you for your tireless efforts to keep all the " puppies in the pen " .

JR

-----Original Message-----

From: Francesca Skelton [mailto:fskelton@...]

Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2005 10:47 AM

Subject: Re: [ ] Re: policy on posting

I never said that I don't give notice to posters. Usually I do (I don't

keep records as that would be a monumental job). However a post that is

rejected DESERVES to NOT be responded to. The reason is that the person

can't be bothered adhering to the rules or reading the rules. Also anyone

reading this list regularly should understand what is required to post.

It seems to me that your gripe is a non-issue since I did not reject your

post and you never asked about it (til now). I had no way of knowing that

you sent a post which did not appear.

The Administrative post explaining our rules are automatically sent to all

new members and are posted to the board automatically by once every

two weeks, most recently: in post #17309 on January 31st. In addition to

this regular posting every two weeks, I often post repeating many of these

rules. So for that effort, not only by me, but by the other moderators, I

ask that people read them and adhere to them. Most of us find them pretty

simple to follow.

I do not keep a record of rejected posts. That would be impractical IMHO.

Since you have suggested it, would you like to do it?

on 2/9/2005 11:14 AM, Clyde at nash.p@... wrote:

[Guest guest]

AND as a moderator I agree completely with the way Fran runs the board, and if I didn't I surely wouldn't do it.

AFAIC, It's her board and she has to run it the way she sees fit. Spammers,etc. are a PITA.

Misinformation gets remembered forever.

Regards.

----- Original Message -----

From: Francesca Skelton

Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2005 9:55 PM

Subject: Re: [ ] Re: policy on posting

on 2/8/2005 10:04 PM, Clyde at nash.p@... wrote:Clyde: You are mistaken. Your original message on trans fats andhydrogenated oils either appeared on the board and you missed it or it DIDdisappear into cyberspace. The reason I can be positive of this is thatyour subsequent "test' message went straight to the board proving that yourmessages were not being censored. I would never have let such a "test"message" through. Veterans will remember previous trolls on this board who are all too willingto take advantage given the opportunity. So please keep that in mind ifthere is further discussion about this. Clyde's unnecessary "test" messageproves my point.

[Guest guest]

>

> > I have a better idea: Why not let the messages be posted, and

let

> > the group respond? This group is better able than any single

> > individual to decide what posts are well-grounded in

science. . . .

Hi Rodney,

Your points are well-taken. This group benefits from being

moderated and the work that Francesca invests in making it

successful.

I have two concerns: 1. Not notifying posters when their messages

are deleted for failing to comply with policies; and 2. The

possibility that some potentially worthwhile messages are deleted

because of failure to include references that the moderator deems

good enough.

I started this thread in reaction to Francesca's response to a would-

be poster who wondered why a message didn't appear. The poster

asked Francesca if he/she was banned. Francesca was unable to tell

the would-be poster why the message didn't appear, and told the

person:

" No you are not banned. Could it be that you didn't give any

references for the assertions in your message? I'm just guessing as

I don't recall the message. "

That got me wondering as to why a post of mine did not appear. I

had previously assumed that my post disappeared into cyberspace, but

I started to wonder if my post was deleted because of insufficient

references.

[Guest guest]

> I never said that I don't give notice to posters. Usually I do (I

don't

> keep records as that would be a monumental job).

Well, by your own post, you told someone who inquired about his/her

post that did not appear:

" No you are not banned. Could it be that you didn't give any

references for the assertions in your message? I'm just guessing as

I don't recall the message. "

It is evident that you did not give notice to this poster.

> It seems to me that your gripe is a non-issue since I did not

reject your post and you never asked about it (til now). I had no

way of knowing that you sent a post which did not appear.

Okay. I accept that you did not delete my post. But after I read

your response to the other would-be poster (above), I think I

reasonably began to wonder whether you did.

> The Administrative post explaining our rules are automatically

sent to all

> new members and are posted to the board automatically by

once every

> two weeks, most recently: in post #17309 on January 31st. In

addition to

> this regular posting every two weeks, I often post repeating many

of these

> rules. So for that effort, not only by me, but by the other

moderators, I

> ask that people read them and adhere to them. Most of us find

them pretty

> simple to follow.

But you clearly do not require references with every assertion or

opinion, and in a conversational forum such as this one, many posts

are made without citations to references. In this respect, the

rules are either vague or not consistently enforced. For instance,

what scientific reference do your offer for your frequent

assertion, " moderation, moderation, moderation? " There is reason to

believe that CR benefits are linelarly related to energy restriction

{Okay, I'm omitting a cite to this reference, because I'm making

this assertion purely for the purposes of this discussion.) Your

posts without references should be allowed, but one could argue,

from the rules, that any post without a scientific reference should

be deleted; and that anyone who attempts such a post should know

automatically that their post was deleted for failing to comply with

that requirement.

>

> I do not keep a record of rejected posts. That would be

impractical IMHO.

> Since you have suggested it, would you like to do it?

Yes. If you'll send me a list of deleted posts I'll archive them

until I run out of disk space.

[Guest guest]

Clyde: I will answer this last post of yours and then I suggest we continue

this offlist. You seem to be the only person in the group who wants to

continue this topic.

Since you have no idea what was in the post that you use as an example (that

I rejected), I don't think you are qualified to judge what happened.

However I will from now on send you all rejected posts to keep on file.

AFA " moderation " etc (one of my mantras), this and others that you think

have been cited without citations HAVE been discussed to death here (with

citations). You can access the archives or even better: READ THE FILES. We

have an entire file on this topic alone.

Most that have put their .02 in on this thread seem to " understand " the

rules and are content with them, so once again, let's move on.

on 2/9/2005 2:53 PM, Clyde at nash.p@... wrote:

>

>

>> I never said that I don't give notice to posters. Usually I do (I

> don't

>> keep records as that would be a monumental job).

>

> Well, by your own post, you told someone who inquired about his/her

> post that did not appear:

>

> " No you are not banned. Could it be that you didn't give any

> references for the assertions in your message? I'm just guessing as

> I don't recall the message. "

>

> It is evident that you did not give notice to this poster.

>

>> It seems to me that your gripe is a non-issue since I did not

> reject your post and you never asked about it (til now). I had no

> way of knowing that you sent a post which did not appear.

>

> Okay. I accept that you did not delete my post. But after I read

> your response to the other would-be poster (above), I think I

> reasonably began to wonder whether you did.

>

>> The Administrative post explaining our rules are automatically

> sent to all

>> new members and are posted to the board automatically by

> once every

>> two weeks, most recently: in post #17309 on January 31st. In

> addition to

>> this regular posting every two weeks, I often post repeating many

> of these

>> rules. So for that effort, not only by me, but by the other

> moderators, I

>> ask that people read them and adhere to them. Most of us find

> them pretty

>> simple to follow.

>

> But you clearly do not require references with every assertion or

> opinion, and in a conversational forum such as this one, many posts

> are made without citations to references. In this respect, the

> rules are either vague or not consistently enforced. For instance,

> what scientific reference do your offer for your frequent

> assertion, " moderation, moderation, moderation? " There is reason to

> believe that CR benefits are linelarly related to energy restriction

> {Okay, I'm omitting a cite to this reference, because I'm making

> this assertion purely for the purposes of this discussion.) Your

> posts without references should be allowed, but one could argue,

> from the rules, that any post without a scientific reference should

> be deleted; and that anyone who attempts such a post should know

> automatically that their post was deleted for failing to comply with

> that requirement.

>

>>

>> I do not keep a record of rejected posts. That would be

> impractical IMHO.

>> Since you have suggested it, would you like to do it?

>

> Yes. If you'll send me a list of deleted posts I'll archive them

> until I run out of disk space.