Asking For Opinions on Negative Discussion

I understand many of you are not happy with the state of racing especially in Australia at the moment, but honestly we were hoping this forum would become more than a place to vent. Almost daily we receive calls and emails from various parties, often with accompanying legal threats, and if it does come to it we will simply have to shut down as currently the forum is free and not ad supported so there's not much business incentive there.

Even when I edit a name somebody names personally with an accompanying taunt for that person to sue, I get "don't you dare edit this admin", so it's becoming impossible to keep everyone happy.

I'm not sure what the best course of action is from here. In a perfect world I'd allow anybody to say what they liked, but internet being what it is, and racing being what that is it wouldn't take long for everything to fall apart. Easiest course of action for Harnesslink would be to simply not allow any talk of suspension, rule breaking etc. In my opinion this wouldn't make us any better than industry bodies (who I won't name) that don't mention the "dark side" of racing, and want to pretend all is well.

I'm going to repost this in the help/announcements section, and I'd appreciate some feedback. Last time I checked internet law in NZ (where Harnesslink is based) is pretty outdated, meaning that Harnesslink, as hosts, are somewhat legally responsible for your comments. And imo staying out of a court room on your behalf trumps my inclination toward free speech, so something has to change.

I understand many of you are censoring your real opinions on this type of stuff somewhat which I appreciate, but it's not enough at the moment and as the forum grows it gets harder and harder to oversee. If we can't find another way we will need to instigate a hush hush rule where cheating etc isn't allowed to be discussed. I understand most of you won't like this, and you're free to leave, though we'd appreciate you staying and continuing to discuss the overwhelmingly positive aspects of the sport.

Options from here, feel free to suggest your own:

1) Shut forum down - not preferred

2) Ban any negative stuff

3) Private members only forum for negative stuff. This wouldn't really solve the problem, but it would reduce complaints somewhat.

4) Bring more moderators on. This is a little tricky because we have consistency issues, and we would still be editing a lot of posts and threads, which members don't take kindly to. It's also a lot of work.

Members probably shouldn't be putting admin in the position of editing posts. A lot of immature posting and keyboard warrior posting is happening. We probably don't need/want these posters so if they complain when there posts are edited tough titties imo. On the occasion a respected poster needs a post edited I believe they will be mature enough to handle it. (I haven't actually taken notice of the editing but have seen things that should/could get edited and probably do after I've seen them)

For every poster that whinges about the editing there would be at least 5 who are right behind you Admin.

I don't think we should ban negative stuff. There have been quite a few threads that have run their course without modification (I could be wrong here because I don't really see what you do behind the scenes). I can see from your point of view as the guy doing all the work you may want this though.

Shut forum down......where else would I waste away my life????

Well im one of the culprits and in future i will tone down what i post as its not the way this forum should be heading.as for the best thing to do it could be a warning system. 1st time a warning, 2nd time a weeks ban from the forum, and 3rd time a 12 month ban.
Then if the person comes back and continues ban for life.

The ban should only be for threats or fowl language directed at a person

Hello Admin,

Agree with your decision regarding locking the thread, it was obvious that things were going downhill fast !

Love Harnesslink with all the great stories and have found the forums very educational and informative for the most part.

Understand that for business reasons a few ads to help fund would be okay and not objectionable to that.

Would appreciate the chance to post questions to harness officials such as what were their thoughts on incidents in races such as the locked thread, to have questions answered in a sensible format. Give people the chance to raise concerns and have them addressed.

Keep up the good work !

Admin,
You have the power and should use it in any way you see fit.
Ringman has a good idea there, set some rule as far as naming people goes and if broken give us the punishment:)
If posters complain well they came go else where, all the good people on here at the moment will continue to post.

Thing with banning posters is aliases.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aussiebreno

Thing with banning posters is aliases.

Im sure in admin tools they have a way to ban the ISP

Quote:

Originally Posted by ringman

Im sure in admin tools they have a way to ban the ISP

Yeah hope so; but on 3 other forums I frequent (one footy related; one gym related and one thoroughbred racing related FYI) they either don't have it or don't utilise it.

I'm a moderator of another very large racing forum.

We have a rule that if it won't pass a Disney movie then don't say it. People can vent but they have to be diplomatic. I don't expect it to be that strict on here.

We also issue forum bans for 2 weeks etc depending on infraction - so temporary bans. I'll leave this decision up to you guys. I don't feel negative stuff should be banned (but I must admit that negative stuff on here lately has got me down) and admin you're not covering HarnessLink's butt re defamation with a private forum.

That only leaves closing the forum or more moderators.

Perhaps another option is having to post with your real name, not non de plume. It's amazing how much things clear up when people use their real name. The keyboard ninjas disappear...

If we cannot discuss a poor drive, this cannot be a racing forum. There obviously has to be limits and I believe there is no need for profanities on here at all. Threats are also a no no. But to discuss merits of a drive/race, when approached in a proper manner surely can be included in general discussion. I would never say anything on here that I wouldnt say to my mates or around the pub etc and I generally enjoy hearing the range of opinions offered here. The short bans idea sounds good.

Hoping to get some more opinions but I can respond these so far:

Quote:

Originally Posted by aussiebreno

Members probably shouldn't be putting admin in the position of editing posts. A lot of immature posting and keyboard warrior posting is happening. We probably don't need/want these posters so if they complain when there posts are edited tough titties imo. On the occasion a respected poster needs a post edited I believe they will be mature enough to handle it. (I haven't actually taken notice of the editing but have seen things that should/could get edited and probably do after I've seen them)

For every poster that whinges about the editing there would be at least 5 who are right behind you Admin.

I don't think we should ban negative stuff. There have been quite a few threads that have run their course without modification (I could be wrong here because I don't really see what you do behind the scenes). I can see from your point of view as the guy doing all the work you may want this though.

Shut forum down......where else would I waste away my life????

Thanks, from the feedback here we won't ban negative stuff at this point.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ringman

Well im one of the culprits and in future i will tone down what i post as its not the way this forum should be heading.as for the best thing to do it could be a warning system. 1st time a warning, 2nd time a weeks ban from the forum, and 3rd time a 12 month ban.
Then if the person comes back and continues ban for life.

The ban should only be for threats or fowl language directed at a person

Yep we have received more than one phone call about you Ringman :) But yeah if you could just tone it down we would appreciate it. I've seen infraction systems implemented on forums I've frequented with mixed results.

The good is that it's fair, members get a couple of warnings with points deducted depending on the offence, and by the time they are banned it's usually pretty clear they deserve to be.

The bad is that 1) People still complain, 2) It does feel a little like disciplining a child 3) Fake accounts, which we could probably deal with but still more admin for us 4) We would still need to moderate fairly aggressively which is a lot of work (not just making edits, but literally trying to read every post isn't easy, especially when you already have a full time job).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shawshank Redemption

Hello Admin,

Agree with your decision regarding locking the thread, it was obvious that things were going downhill fast !

Love Harnesslink with all the great stories and have found the forums very educational and informative for the most part.

Understand that for business reasons a few ads to help fund would be okay and not objectionable to that.

Would appreciate the chance to post questions to harness officials such as what were their thoughts on incidents in races such as the locked thread, to have questions answered in a sensible format. Give people the chance to raise concerns and have them addressed.

Keep up the good work !

That's definitely something we have been wanting to do on Harnesslink for a long time, and were hoping it would naturally happen here without us needing to solicit industry people. The tone of the forum as it is currently would definitely put quite a few people off though. One thing posters need to keep in mind is that for every member reading a post there are about 200 other unregistered people reading it, and forums are subject to a tribe mentality which can put people off.

Quote:

Originally Posted by justdoit

Admin,
You have the power and should use it in any way you see fit.
Ringman has a good idea there, set some rule as far as naming people goes and if broken give us the punishment:)
If posters complain well they came go else where, all the good people on here at the moment will continue to post.

Not necessarily as easy as it sounds (at least to me). For instance if somebody hears something unofficially that a driver is in trouble, then yeah this is probably hearsay (even if true) and shouldn't be talked about on a public forum. If then HRNSW publishes a story confirming it, then that can be posted. But then somebody comes along as says "this cheat ***** ***** etc then that's too far. That's just one example, but the problem is it's pretty hard to draw a line in the sand... though we need to be the ones to draw it and I'll look into some formal rules. If you have any feedback regarding this please let me know.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aussiebreno

Thing with banning posters is aliases.

We can detect this, not a perfect solution though. For example there are a couple of posters who I suspect are different people from their writing style, but they are using the same computer.

It seems you guys aren't to keen for a private forum or anything like that. And at this point I'm a bit reluctant to get into a infraction type system, though this might need to be implemented in the future.

From the experience he had on Harnesslink, requiring facebook/real names, I'm thinking the cleanest solution would be to require everybody to list their real names alongside their username. I know some people might object to that, but honestly if you have a big problem with that your probably not the type that people want on here in the first place.

If you do have a legitimate cause to not post your real name just PM me the reason and I could circumvent the requirement on your account. For example I work online, so my when somebody Google's my name I don't want them getting hundreds of harness racing forum results, but that wouldn't be a problem for most people.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flashing Red

I'm a moderator of another very large racing forum.

We have a rule that if it won't pass a Disney movie then don't say it. People can vent but they have to be diplomatic. I don't expect it to be that strict on here.

We also issue forum bans for 2 weeks etc depending on infraction - so temporary bans. I'll leave this decision up to you guys. I don't feel negative stuff should be banned (but I must admit that negative stuff on here lately has got me down) and admin you're not covering HarnessLink's butt re defamation with a private forum.

That only leaves closing the forum or more moderators.

Perhaps another option is having to post with your real name, not non de plume. It's amazing how much things clear up when people use their real name. The keyboard ninjas disappear...

I like the Disney rule, if only because it's so simple, everyone knows instantly what's not allowed. In my opinion so far swearing is less of an issue then the personal and legal stuff though, so for the moment I think we can keep the informal rule of you can say some something tastes like shit, but can't call someone a shithead. Swearing is also a lot easier to moderate.

I'll talk to the tech guy tomorrow and see what we can do with requiring real names. What do people think about that?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gtrain

If we cannot discuss a poor drive, this cannot be a racing forum. There obviously has to be limits and I believe there is no need for profanities on here at all. Threats are also a no no. But to discuss merits of a drive/race, when approached in a proper manner surely can be included in general discussion. I would never say anything on here that I wouldnt say to my mates or around the pub etc and I generally enjoy hearing the range of opinions offered here. The short bans idea sounds good.

Exactly right, re racing forum. Won't do that.

I'm not opposed to using real names, however I think there will be a severe drop in posting because of it - look how little comments are now made to articles.

Personally I would sticky a thread of forum rules on each different sub forum... repeated offenders get a 2 week ban or something like that.

If that doesn't clear the forum up in the next 2 weeks, maybe then implement real names. It's up to you guys, just tossing things around.

I agree creating a private members area on the forum will not negate liability for harnesslink. Constant editing of posts should exist to keep comments fair and without profanity, ensuring people don't "cross the line"
I believe more than one moderator could be beneficial as there have been plenty of posts that are not edited but can be interpreted as derogatory and slanderous, especially in more recent times relating specifically to the negative side if racing. More than one opinion may be helpful in this instance.

I wholeheartedly agree with using real names as opposed to aliases. Using your own name makes you more accountable. Personally I think this is the first option to consider to "clean up" the site. It worked with the home page, changed it to a facebook login and now it's a "Disney" movie- great analogy flashing red!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flashing Red

I'm not opposed to using real names, however I think there will be a severe drop in posting because of it - look how little comments are now made to articles.

Personally I would sticky a thread of forum rules on each different sub forum... repeated offenders get a 2 week ban or something like that.

If that doesn't clear the forum up in the next 2 weeks, maybe then implement real names. It's up to you guys, just tossing things around.

I agree there will likely be a drop off, but actually it's two different things. On Harnesslink in the past people could comment on articles without signing in at all. To compare the two you would need to disable registration in the forum entirely which would definitely increase discussion a lot but it would be a lot more negative. In effect we would just be adding another hoop to jump through to post, but since there is already a hoop there (requiring registration in the first place) the second hoop isn't actually that difficult.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Juliette

I agree creating a private members area on the forum will not negate liability for harnesslink. Constant editing of posts should exist to keep comments fair and without profanity, ensuring people don't "cross the line"
I believe more than one moderator could be beneficial as there have been plenty of posts that are not edited but can be interpreted as derogatory and slanderous, especially in more recent times relating specifically to the negative side if racing. More than one opinion may be helpful in this instance.

I wholeheartedly agree with using real names as opposed to aliases. Using your own name makes you more accountable. Personally I think this is the first option to consider to "clean up" the site. It worked with the home page, changed it to a facebook login and now it's a "Disney" movie- great analogy flashing red!

Thanks for your thoughts Juliette. While adding more moderation will help, it doesn't solve the underlying issue in that people themselves should be accountable for what they post. Requiring real names actually fixes it, (I hope anyway). It's a little like a country incarcerating more and more people and employing more police whereas if they actually worked on the actual problems, drug reform, poverty etc they would be a lot better off. I'd take an intelligent mid sized forum over a large thoughtless forum any day, both as a moderator and a reader.

I've added a poll to this thread, please vote :)

I think you should try with peoples real names and see how it goes, if it does not work then look at other options.

I have no problem with real names. I never say anything in forums that I would not say to peoples faces.
If we can't discuss the negatives of our sport how can we expect to fix them. I know I only come to this site for the forums, you get all the news here first. Without the forums I think the site would die.

Have no problems either. Just about everyone knows who I am anyway. Christ, we offer the yearlings under VVV Standardbreds...it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to work it out. :D:D:D:D
By the way, there is not a whole lot that has been said on here as far as contentious subjects are concerned that has (1) Proven to be wide of the mark or (2) was mindlessly abusive.
Forums like this serve an excellent purpose as far as dispensing/dispersing information ahead of the wave so to speak...PV's play for control of the NSW Stewards for example. The fact that a mate of mine is a NSW MP and he fills me on such things because he knows I am involved in Harness Racing is no subvertive act as far as the best interests of Harness Racing in this State are concerned, though no doubt Peter feels differently. :rolleyes: That's what he gets for the Silvio Berlusconi impersonation. :p:p:p:p

Due to the feedback (thanks a lot everybody) we've gone down the real names route. When you log in for the first time you will get an error message which contains a link to edit your profile, where you can fill it in.

Obviously we can't control what people actually put in those fields, but at the moment our policy is you must put your full real name, anything else and you'll be asked to change it, even if everybody knows who you are (this means you Mr. Varcoe ;) ).

If we detect that anybody is using a fake name they will be temporarily banned. If you have a legitimate reason for not wanting your name published PM me with the reason and I'll allow something like "Not Required" in that field.

Ok, Ok. Hands up. You got me. I was just doing that to annoy you.;) A day without mischief is a day wasted. :rolleyes:

Haha after nearly 2000 of your posts, I knew well enough that was the case :)

1740.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gutwagon

I have no problem with real names. I never say anything in forums that I would not say to peoples faces.
If we can't discuss the negatives of our sport how can we expect to fix them. I know I only come to this site for the forums, you get all the news here first. Without the forums I think the site would die.

Hey Ricky...as an aside, can you tell me where you came up with the moniker of 'gutwagon'? I think it's a beauty.