Where Worlds Collide

Very good post on the role of a moderator on online forums.

The rule of thumb I find useful both there and here (and, more importantly given the way people’s internet habits are changing, over on Facebook where blog content is imported) is to approach moderation the same way a good chair would approach chairing a public meeting.

Giving people a chance to have their say is right up there at the top of the list of objectives for chairing. Alongside it are other considerations like trying to give lots of people in the meeting the chance to have their say: the free speech of one person shouting down whatever anyone else says infringes the free speech of all the others also wanting to talk.

While it’s obvious that political (and for that matter, religious) forums are far more likely to turn toxic, at least in theory, than those devoted to subjects like model railways or music, I’ve always found that many online community sites are only as good as their moderators.

The point about shouting down others is a very good point. What’s worse is when the shouting down isn’t just one disruptive individual but two or three backing each other up. It seems to me that it’s a case of “civil behaviour”, “high traffic”, “no moderation”, pick any two. Do nothing to rein them in, and the loud aggressive types will drive away many of the more reasonable posters, who might otherwise have made a useful contribution, but find the online atmosphere too unpleasant. It’s why, for example, I give the official Marillion forum a very wide berth.

Although sometimes I wonder whether at least some of the trolls aren’t necessarily malicious, but demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect when it comes to online discourse. This would explain why they always blame ‘the other guy’ when a thread turns nasty.

Blogs are a bit different, in that many of them are very much personal soapboxes, and their owners primary interest isn’t to build a community around the blog - those such as Making Light are very much the exception here.

Don’t know if it’s the time of year, or it’s something in the water, but a number of small prog bands’ web forums have turned rather toxic lately, and worse still, the discord has spilled from one forum to another.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve read some quite spiteful and mean-spirited attacks against one or two bands, followed up by complaints that the band’s fans are unable to handle criticism. And of course you find some of the very same people will be up in arms if anyone says a word against their band. Too much of it has got very unpleasantly personal.

I am really sick of these “My band is better than your band” pissing contests. Why is it that some people seem incapable of praising one band without simultaneously bad-mouthing another band who are perceived to be competitors? I’m thinking here particularly of a scene of interrelated bands where many of the regular forum posters know band members personally, and have a natural instinct to be defensive when they’re subject to what can easily be seen as unfair criticism.

I recognise that it should it’s perfectly OK to say you didn’t enjoy a particular album or gig, and to explain why. But I really wish people would at least try to be a little bit more gracious about it. I don’t think it’s on to imply that if someone else did enjoy a gig that their judgement must have been impaired. All these bands put their heart and soul their music. If you don’t care for a particular band, just leave them to people who do like them, and don’t keep carping on about how much you think they suck.

And I don’t think it’s OK to post jibes at other forum members who saw things differently, then claim it was only “witty banter between friends” when you find that they take offence. If you don’t know someone well enough to know what you can get away with saying, then don’t say it! And if they do take offence, then it can’t have been just ‘witty banter’. Is that really that difficult to understand?

And before people accuse me of hypocrisy because of some of the things I say about overrated indie bands on places like The Guardian Music Blog, I think completely different rules apply when it comes to big corporate rock acts or currently fashionable bands who have been ridiculously hyped by certain sections of the media - think of it as putting the boot into the hype as much as the act themselves.

Is a little bit more civility and mutual respect too much to ask for?

Back in the elder days, when Men were Men, beer was one-and-six a pint, and everyone only had metered dialup internet access, internet discussions revolved around mailing lists. (Yes, I know that before that, there was Usenet, but..) . Then as unmetered access became the norm, people moved to web forums, and mailing list traffic slowly dwindled, and once busy lists became shadows of their former selves.

Now I wonder if web forums themselves are dying. I’m on a lot of web forums, and while a few of them still have some sporadic traffic, more and more once-busy sites seem to have been taken over by tumbleweed. It appears that everybody’s on Facebook instead.

Only the really big forums, like RMWeb seem to be thriving. Perhaps it’s because it’s membership is large enough that it has enough of a critical mass to be able to compete with places like Facebook. It’s noticable that the recent site redesign has made things look a little more like a social networking site than a plain web forum. Also noticable that we seem to get more mentions on some bands on a thread in the off-topic area than some of those bands have posts on their official forums.

By the end of the week I’d had my fill of narra-gauge kettles, and it was time for some proper trains again. I’d had Rugeley recommended as a good place for main line photography a few months back. It’s a local station on the four-track section of the Trent Valley line. As well as the procession of Virgin Trains Pendolinos, it sees a lot of freight; mostly intermodal from DB Schenker (Née EWS), Freightliner and DRS. And there’s a nice pub just outside the station supplying food (and real ales) when you get tired of watching trains.

Compared with Newport, where it’s all EWS 66s, Rugeley seems a variety of traction. This southbound Freightliner working has a pair veteran class 86s, still hard at work after 40 years. Other trains had DBS dual-voltage 92s, Freightliner 90s, and Freightliner and DRS 66s. One has to question why so much freight on this electrified route runs behind diesel traction.

The final weekend took me to my old home town of Slough, where my parents celebrated their Golden Wedding. This photo is from Saturday lunchtime, when the immediate family went to The House on the Bridge at Eton. There was a big party the following day at the church.

I don’t always stop to think how lucky I am that both my parents are still with is; especially when I think of the number of friends I have who are decades younger than me, but have lost one or both parents.

This last picture is one of those times when you see a good picture and just happen to have your camera with you. It’s the Thames at Windsor, where a huge gathering of swans had surrounded someone feeding them bread.

I’m about to upgrade to a new version of WordPress - if things go strange for a while, that’s why….

Update: Upgrade seems to have gone OK

For those of you living in Manchester, there’s a blogmeet, organised (again) by Kate of The Manchizzle

I’ve sorted things out for our blogmeet. Unfortunately Trof NQ couldn’t give us a dedicated space that would be big enough, but Centro can give us their whole basement area. Centro is on Tib Street towards the northern end heading away from the city centre.

We’ll be meeting there on Tuesday, March 10 from 7-9pm. Just come downstairs. They do very nice beers and drinks as well as coffees and non-alcoholic bevvies. They don’t do food as far as I know, so maybe grab something nearby (Hunters BBQ?) beforehand if you’re coming straight from work. I’ll bring the nametags.

I’ve missed the last couple of blogmeets due to clashes with holidays, gigs or just having the wrong date in my diary. May see some of you there.

I’ve finally got fed up with the increasing levels of crud on MySpace, and decided to investigate Facebook after being prompted by Scott, along with semi-regular nagging from members the #Freaks crowd who had already abandoned MySpace in favour of it months ago.

Facebook does allow you to search for people before you actually sign up, and I found a whole load of people I know are already members. Not just the same crowd that I had as friends on MySpace, but loads of past work colleagues, and members of my old gaming group who I’d really lost touch with since moving to Manchester.

So far I’ve got 36 friends in less that 24 hours since signing up, which doesn’t seem like bad going. And that’s all people I know, either face-to-face or online, not random strangers.

I won’t be deleting my MySpace profile quite yet, but I can’t see myself spending much time on that site except to check band’s sites for song samples and gig dates.

Arriving at work this morning I met a work colleague who’d just stepped off the same train as me. He’d just got a mobile phone call from his boss saying the office was closed because of a fire.

The road outside the station was indeed filled with fire engines, but it turned out that the fire was at the pretentious wine bar next door. Although all the surrounding roads were still closed, including the main A34, the fire brigade allowed us through to our undamaged office. By that time they were damping down the embers, and there was no danger of it spreading to our building. (It’s the building you can see in the background of the photo)

Too early to speculate as to the cause, but the whole upper floor was completely burned out. It’s just four days after the grand opening, and there are mutterings about arson. Which is probably what you’d expect when the owner had recently done jail time for GBH.

Although I’d been in the building a few times under previous management when it was called “Brasingamens”, the refurbished establishment was not the sort of place I’d ever be likely to frequent. It was squarely aimed at the footballer’s wives market, and the only time we’d ever be likely to go there was to laugh at the prices (Eight quid for a glass of wine, so I hear). Perhaps they should rebuild it as a real ale pub with live music every Friday night.

At the moment I have to go all the way to Crewe for that sort of thing.

Update: BBC News is now reporting it as suspected arson. Which is pretty much what we all thought.

I’ve got a rather contentious comment thread on a five-week old post that I need to keep a lid on lest anyone goes thermonuclear on me. So for the time being I’ve turned on comment moderation across the site, so every comment will have to be approved by me.

One everyone concerned has had the chance to have their say I’ll close that post to further comments, and turn moderation back off. In the meantime, thank you in advance for your co-operation.

My grandmother, a keen gardener, used to describe slugs as “the Devil’s creatures”, after they’d eaten the seedlings she’d carfully planted yet again.

While I have no interest in gardening whatsoever, I’m beginning to wonder if she had a point. When I returned from holiday, the living room carpet was covered in slimy trails, when the wretched little things had been crawling all round the room in the two weeks I was away.

So I vacuumed the carpet. And the very next morning, there were a fresh set of trails.

There’s is no evidence of poltergeist activity, so I don’t believe it’s ectoplasm…