Friday, November 2, 2018
BLOG attendance
How long has it been since a post drew more than 100 comments? That used to be the standard for a "hot topic." Apparently not anymore ! What has happened? Has a fairy swooped over sprinkling the labs with wuss-dust? Has everyone at the labs signed a "no comment" agreement applying to every outrageous news release?
I don't think it's the fault of the moderators. The blog denizens need to grow a pair and speak up.
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32 comments:
Scooby closes most threads at around 20 posts or whenever it is actually interesting.
The threat of "moderation", i.e. censorship, has drastically reduced blog participation. The possibility of contentious or even insulting or disparaging comments used to make this blog interesting. Now there is only careful, neutral, non-disruptive namby-pamby commenting. It is sad and it is the inevitable result of the "moderators'" policies.
Untrue. I close a thread when it strays from original topic ,regardless of how many comments .Did you pick that number at random?
Note the use of the logical connective, “or” scooby. Many posts have meaning regardless of your opinions.
I think the delay time in posting kills ongoing threads fairly quickly. Not to mention that some threads are indeed shutdown. I though the blog was much better a few years ago. Between the insults there are a few facts and some of the insults can be pretty darn funny.
Being polite in your comments is not mamby-pamby .Insulting others is not entertaining. If you're are looking for entertainment, please look elsewhere .
Or whenever it gets interesting. I understand what commenter said. To me ,when a post goes off topic, it is no longer interesting.
To me ,when a post goes off topic, it is no longer interesting.
November 4, 2018 at 6:50 AM
OK, you've finally hit on the problem: It's not all about you.
Back when this Blog was transitioning to the current Aggressive Censorship mode, there was a lively discussion on what this action would entail. Many commenters pointed out that such a change would pretty much be the end of lively discussions. The moderator dismissed those arguments and proceeded with the plan anyways. The results are as expected: the Blog is dead. Why is anyone surprised?
While nobody is surprised, many people are sad. The dead Blog is the best gift upper management of LANL could have hoped for. Which, in turn, sets the Lab back, by allowing management corruption and misconduct to proceed unchecked. Years ago, Doug Roberts helped rid LANL of Nanos, by famously choosing not to censor "The Real Story". Now, all that was won then is getting lost. Sure, the new Blog is "clean". Clean of content and of meaningful contributions.
It has been noted before and should be noted now: despite the constant stream of complaints about this blog, nobody has to date offered an alternative. There are plenty of platforms available that would allow someone to host their own version, with/without moderation, with/without anonymity, etc. I’m not going to take it on, so I’ll keep any critique I may have of Scooby to myself and appreciate the service offered here.
I am open to criticism but also need help in terms of how to make the blog more interesting. So far, all I heard is that I censor posts and comments. Not true! Just following blog rules.
If someone does not agree with the rules, they can suggest new ones or just stay away .
I have a suggestion .Start your own un-moderated blog and see what happens.
"It has been noted before and should be noted now: despite the constant stream of complaints about this blog, nobody has to date offered an alternative."
November 4, 2018 at 10:19 PM
How about this alternative? STOP MODERATING THE BLOG.
"So far, all I heard is that I censor posts and comments. Not true! Just following blog rules. If someone does not agree with the rules, they can suggest new ones or just stay away .
November 5, 2018 at 7:43 AM
In other words, "I don't censor the blog, I just follow the rules that require me to censor the blog. Of course, I made up the rules, and if you don't like it, tough." Really?? This is he height of disingenuousness. Does "just following orders" still seem like a defensible position in this day and age? Especially when you gave yourself the orders?
I do not believe an unmoderated blog promotes civility and responsibility .Not negotiable .
However I am open to your suggestions as far as what you think the rules should be.
I really miss the old blog.
I really miss the old blog.
November 6, 2018 at 5:14 AM
Well why don't you restart it? As a reminder, there is no salary or benefits doing so.
Proposed rules:
1. No profanity or pornography.
2. No promoting of commercial interests or other "spam."
3. No threats of physical harm.
4. No repetitive posts.
5. No other illegal activity or statements.
No other rules. Period.
Your notions of "civility and responsibility" are undefined and subjective. That makes the blog subject to your censorship for undefined and subjective reasons. Unacceptable.
I thought about a year ago you could post at it would appear instantly if something crazy turned up the moderator would check once a day to get rid of it, other than that it was an all go. People could have close to a real time dialogue which kept it more lively. Sure sometimes it would get off track on politics but even than it was often how politics would influence the lab so it was still actually related most of the time. There was even occasions it went off into philosophy and ethics which again are actually related to issues at he lab such the morality of nuclear weapons and so on. Now you post and a day, or two or three it might appear. In general Julian has been pretty good about not stopping threads but E-echo is another story. If he doe not like the topic it is gone.
In fairness to Julian, he did allow a post of mine earlier that pointed out when he was violating his own rules.
But I agree that the vibrancy of this blog does not compare well with its predecessor. Perhaps the era of blogs has passed...
"Your notions of "civility and responsibility" are undefined and subjective. That makes the blog subject to your censorship for undefined and subjective reasons. Unacceptable."
Since you are so dissatisfied with this blog, you could ask LLNS management to open up a section in the Newsline for blog comments where you alone can define blog "civility and responsibility" that meets your expectations, but I don't recommend it.
The dead Blog is the best gift upper management of LANL could have hoped for...
LANL management shouldn't be too worried about an LLNL blog.
Apparently this thread is closed. I guess any discussion that questions the actions or decisions of Julian gets killed.
No, it is not closed .if it was you could not even comment.
Evil echo has not been a co-moderator in over a year .
Civility is civility. Calling someone an idiot for example because you font agree with them ,is not civil. I am not going with you on this .Yes, that is subjective but that is why moderators do: make subjective decisions .I am not a machine.
Go away.
Evil echo has not been a co-moderator in over a year .
November 8, 2018 at 6:28 PM
Agreed, but we can still make fun of him.
Agreed, but we can still make fun of him.
November 8, 2018 at 7:12 PM
Agreed, and apparently he still puts himself out there to be made fun of.
Look, it is easy to criticize. A valid response really is to run your own blog how you want and stop using this one if you feel so strongly. I get that. It is also a lot of work to maintain a blog. Let’s all keep that in mind.
Having said that, I will respectfully make a suggestion in the spirit of improving matters.
A good compromise would appear to be allow unmoderated comments to be posted immediately and to delete those that are offensive after the fact. Offensive as defined by the moderator, not the community. This makes the blog more active, which does engender a certain amount of noise (the two LANL blogs were loaded with undifferentiated garbage, but a decent signal was there if one was paitient) in exchange for more active participation. The downsides are (a) a bit more noise and (b) likely more work for the moderator to comb back through posts and remove those that are offensive, or that have evolved into the offensive. Again, offensive is defined by the blog moderator not the rest of us.
That’s my suggestion anyway. It is difficult to deny that this blog’s traffic suffers from up front moderation combined with limited hours of moderation time (meaning the time it takes for posts to appear).
re: November 8, 2018 at 7:12 PM, November 10, 2018 at 6:23 PM
You folks are amazing.
Like some kids caught beating up other kids, your parents ended up grounding you. And you then complain that no one comes over to play and demand that dad un-ground you so can resume the "fun" of beating up other kids.
How about you learn to act like real adults? How about deciding that put-downs and rude behavior are not something to be proud of? How about realizing the it's not all about you - that the community as a whole outweighs your narcissism?
You've done NOTHING to prove, much less deserve any reprieve in the level of moderation. In fact your constant whining and personal attacks on Scooby and I just reinforce my belief that you're not even real current or former employees of the labs. These writings are more consistent with an overweight, out of work 20-year old who spends all day trolling the Internet in their underwear from mom's basement.
I've put up with over a year's worth of slander and innuendo from you folks. There are others here who are good and decent folk. It's just having to deal with a few rotten eggs that really makes my blood boil.
"A good compromise would appear to be allow unmoderated comments to be posted immediately and to delete those that are offensive after the fact. Offensive as defined by the moderator, not the community. This makes the blog more active,..."
I'm not so sure it is a good compromise for the moderator because when offensive comments are left on this blog, the moderator will be blamed for not deleting offensive comments quickly enough. The only balanced compromise is for Scooby to interview a few more moderators, but I don't see many volunteers for that task.
November 10, 2018 at 7:18 PM
You've completely ignored the only relevant question, which is of course, what is "offensive"?? To whom? Some "snowflake" from some liberal college dorm, or some blue-collar Trump supporter from the central valley? Who gets to decide, and by what criteria? To allow the blog moderator to make his own personal decision on this is completely unfair to almost everyone (except the moderator). A simple set of rules that disallow profanity, threats of violence, obvious scams or commercial uses, or other illegal activity, would leave a wide open, honest blog not subject to anyone's personal whims or prejudices about "offensive" material. If anyone finds himself "offended" he can simply ignore the post involved. What is wrong with that, except that it requires some people to develop a bit of a thicker skin?
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