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Craig and Colleagues

As with, I suspect, many others, I have been increasingly irritated by the number of derogatory and personally insulting posts by contributors who appear to have no other goal in participating on the forum other than to cause mischief and unpleasantness. Kevin recently issued a plea to end anonymous registration and whilst I fully accept the right to free speech, that has to come with some responsibilities too. The posts in question do nothing to add to the record on Pod Arena rather they devalue this website considerably. Many colleagues have mentioned the value of contributing here in terms of business generation. The public - and prospective patients do read these pages and in that respect the Internet is very much like a shop window. Only sometimes, what is on display, does no-one any favours. I don't know how practical it would be to change registration requirements, Craig, but I would also like to hear other opinions on what is the best approach to inhibit misaligned and malicious posters from further reducing the valuable record Pod Arena has made so far in the short time it's been available. It's worth remembering that when something you do in your leisure time ceases to become fun, then you very quickly stop doing it.

Sincerely,

MR

 

I agree that the anonymous trolls are irritating to a degree. This is a professional site and the vast majority of the posts are useful and informative. I really feel that the time has come - and I despise overbearing authority - to anticipate what may come about in any case and to disallow anonymous posting here. I state this in the knowledge that not all anonymous posters are trolls or otherwise controversial, but leaving aside exceptional circumstances, I cannot envisage a circumstance in which it would damage any colleague to use their professional names.

Bill Liggins

 

definition of troll

Those that went to uni, would know you can't rely on wiki info. Saying that, they would not approve of Net for Beginners website either....but it does give a more indepth definition of internet troll. See below link:-

http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/weirdwebculture/f/what-is-an-internet-troll.htm

 

It's a tricky one. There are the anonymous posters who, as above, hop into any discussion in order to air their tiresome grievances and ruin things by taking them off topic, and a change to the registration rules might help there. But there are also those here for profit, promotion of their product etc who can be equally tiresome.

And then of course the barefoot brigade!

A feature I have seen in some forums is a "this is spam" button. If a post is off topic, diversionary, abusive or otherwise unhelpful, any member can flag it as spam and its content becomes hidden, unless clicked on. By the same token a spammed post can be voted "not spam" and a vote added to reinclude it into the thread.

That way, freedom of expression is preserved and censorship avoided, but the content of the forum can still be moderated, by the people and for the people.

 

Gets my vote.

 

If Admin can't monitor posts or will not prohibit anonymous posts, simply ignore and do not respond to the inappropriate posts.

 

I DO ignore the posts of those on my `ignore` list. However, as I said previously; I can still see their drivel when they are quoted by those who choose to respond. Which irritates. I like Roberts` idea of some form of moderation by posters.

 

Not for me thanks, I prefer a totalitarian government here. That's what I signed up for and that's what I got. Why should I presume to now have the skill to take over that governments role, or to question it's ability, when they have carried out that role almost flawlessly to date?

Anyway, it's just another ride...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGTWRYMmnuY

 

Duplicate post. Have this instead as an edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tulIlSb64Lc Is it spam? Depends on how deep you think about the lyrics, whether you like the banjo and whether you like me...etc., etc.

Anyway, here's the lyrics- go figure yourself.

"I got a pig at home in a pen
And I got corn to feed him
I got a dog at home in the yard
And I got a stick to tease him
But we're trying to build a monument
To show that we were here
It won't be visible through the air
And there won't be any shade
To cool the monument
To prove that we were here
I got a banjo and a wife
And I got the songs to please her
I got a little old house of trees
And I got the moon and stars to see" Gene Parsons- Monument

By the way, I really don't care whether you like my posts or not- this isn't facebook.

 

Not suggesting that posters take over the role of moderating. Admin do a good job, already. Ok, maybe a spam button is not required. I`m sure many of my posts could be considered spam, if you don`t like my flavour of humour or my taste in music. Or, understand the relevance. I`ll just continue to ignore the idiots.

It's always funny until someone gets hurt....Then it's just hilarious.

 

While community moderation can be effective when the community is rational and dispassionate, like any democracy there is the danger of mob rule. Even when the mob is objectively correct about a subject - this often leads to the "echo chamber" effect - where the only viewpoints, opinions, and perspectives that survive the moderation system are those that agree with the hivemind.

One of the greatest purposes (as I have interpreted it) of the Podiatry Arena is to act as a crucible, proving ground, or even a kind of "gladiatorial arena" for ideas. However, with community moderation the discourse can be controlled (or at least appear to be controlled) by the majority opinion. For the years I've been coming here the admins have, for the most part, been very level-headed and fair in how they treated troll/flamebait threads.

I'm no fan of totalitarian authority, but in this community we have the benefit of a (mostly) benevolent dictator - and that's far more appealing than letting the masses of sock-puppet accounts control the dialogue.

Also, I support anonymity for reasons mentioned in the Kirby thread on the same subject a couple weeks ago.

 

One of your "trolls" is in the class of 2016 Des Moines, he populated other forums as well, so far no name, just know he is in that class

 

I love 'flamebait', I hadn't heard that one before!

My point is that a) no-one here should be worried about posting under their own name and b) overweening authority or not, pages such as these may be forced to disallow anonymous posting in the near future. That being the case, leading the way is not a bad thing.

All the best

Bill