New LRC Not So Much Fun - Is The Site Moderated Too Much Now?

Why don’t you just leave the website? bouncer keeps kicking you out the club…you keep returning. something is not right…. You.

He asked for an explanation. Nothing wrong with that. The proprietors of the site don’t have to give him one, but it would be common courtesy to do so.

It cracks me up that the liberals think that the mods are two hard on the libs and the patriots think that they are two hard on the conservatives. I just wish they would crack down on Flagpole constantly calling well-meaning people idiots and Armstronglivs for his virulent Trump hatred and Agip for his goody two shoes optimism.

The moderation’s transparency is evidenced by the # of deletions on this thread alone.

Indeed. The moderators are in charge of this site. They have deleted so many replies on this thread that it renders true discussion meaningless. The brothers do not care.

I come here now mostly to troll. If management thinks so little of the discussion forum that they will not control the moderation, I will comply and treat it mostly as a place to clown around, rather than have serious discussion.

I just got "low or no content." It was on topic, a pretty significant comment, but someone had a low opinion of it.

Moderation of any forum is difficult. You can never have absolute free speech. Aside from any other issues, the site would be most likely sued within the first few months. I'm not exaggerating to prove a point. If anyone could write anything about anyone else relatively anonymously (I don't believe anything is ever truly anonymous unless you get into the ridiculous with regard to devices) and it was left up, then there would be serious issues.

Having said that, I do think that there is a problem and it is a big one.

It's difficult if not near impossible for any moderator to remove their own personal bias. Even if you think you are actively trying to do that, believe me, you aren't! It's just human nature. In fact some people can try to do it and go too far the other way, although I don't think this is the case here. I can accept that in a way - to some degree - as I think it's near impossible to override but if someone is trying to actively shape the discussion then that is wrong and it will be very transparent.

What I find difficult too is that funny or lighthearted threads often seem to be removed.

A lot of the more elaborate trolls write threads disguised as being reasonable but it is actually some weird kind of baiting. So then if you write a thread about an everyday occurrence the moderators may look at it closely and they don't take it at face value because of the other threads and they delete it. Or, maybe I am being too generous there.

I have no idea who it is and it may be a group of people or one person or two or who knows, but there does appear to be some level of moderation which appears to be done not with good intentions.

I think there needs to be clearer posting guidelines. If posts keep being deleted there comes a point where people stop trying to post.

The brothers obviously care about the site given they have spent a lot of money on revamping the design and such.

They don't seem to understand that over moderation and constant deleting of threads is getting their site penalised by Google. A couple of years ago whenever I searched for just about any athletics query, a LetsRun thread would show up on the first page of results. I rarely see that now. And the reason is Google wants stable results. They don't want to show a page on their first page of results that when clicked gives a LetsRun 404 'thread has been deleted' message.

The worst is the mods deciding to delete threads that have been going for days or weeks or even years, and long been indexed by Google. For example, there was a classic thread - 'Katir is the most obvious doper in history' which ran on for over 20 pages, and appeared on the first page of results for 'Mo Katir' let alone - 'is Katir doping?'. Then a mod decides to delete it because he found it 'discriminatory'.

The Brojos have confirmed they do not even know how to contact their own moderators.

Brojos, your mods are costing you thousands of dollars. It would make financial sense to employ paid mods who know what they are doing.

Figures. Each moderator has different standards. Some moderators, if they don’t agree with your point, wouldn’t make it themselves, or find it socially/politically objectionable, it’s gone. I spent more time than I would care to admit, sending emails to the brothers to convince them that the moderation was ruining the site. Sad to say it made no difference.

Excellent post. I was not aware of the Google algorithm, and I find it amazing, though not unbelievable, that the brothers cannot contact their own moderators. Surely they know how to revoke moderator privileges?

The worst, the absolute worst, is when the moderators attack decades-old threads, removing posts in light of present-day speech codes, or for their personal preferences. It’s like erasing history.

Thank you for your post, and you make good points. I wonder though if the point about lawsuits is accurate? I mean, have athletes won lawsuits against boards for allowing anonymous posts they don’t like?

To win a libel lawsuit, a public figure must prove malice as I understand it, meaning he/she must prove that the brothers knew the anonymous poster was lying, and left it up specifically to bring material harm to the athlete. This seems like a very high bar.

Or am I mistaken?

Hi Mikeh,

Did you get an answer from them on this? Seems like a pretty significant issue with the mods.

I agree it is significant, but I have seen no response. I’m just happy if moderators don’t delete posts on this thread, which is supposed to be a place specifically allowed by the brothers to discuss moderation.