Official thread to discuss moderation policies

And yet another unprovoked personal attack by rekrunner:

rekrunner wrote:

"Neutral observer" seems unlikely to be described as "grossly unfair and reckless to state, infer or imply differently". Maybe you meant "casual observer".

I officially reported this one. First time I reported anything. Let's say what will happen next.

This bigoted racist thread has been up for more than a day and still remains up.

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=9500048

dunes runner wrote:

This bigoted racist thread has been up for more than a day and still remains up.

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=9500048

While I don't agree with the OP premise of the thread, because I think the natural limit of the human being is faster than what the OP says. However, denying there is a genetic superiority is literally the opposite of racism.

Webster dictionary:

"a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race"

Wait a minute -- you call yourself "casual obsever", not "casual observer". Your judgement of those who still presume innocence until proven guilty was provocative. "grossly unfair and reckless" are the words USADA described those who "state, infer or imply differently". I think it's fair to say, you "state, infer or imply differently".

casual obsever wrote:

And yet another unprovoked personal attack by rekrunner:

rekrunner wrote:

"Neutral observer" seems unlikely to be described as "grossly unfair and reckless to state, infer or imply differently". Maybe you meant "casual observer".

I officially reported this one. First time I reported anything. Let's say what will happen next.

wejo wrote:

7) The one debate we are having internally is whether to ban people who are uncivil or make personal attacks. I think they should be banned. You can disagree with someone without name calling . Disagree with them on the facts. Even if someone posts something you consider racist/sexist. Argue against it. The worst of the worst will be removed (ie racial slurs, etc), but if someone posts something you find offensive why not argue against it instead of calling them names?

Wejo, many years ago, I ran equal opportunity programs for an entire Air Force base. This was after the Watts riots in LA so tensions were high. We had no rules about what was or was not discrimination. Sure, sometimes it was easy to see, but occasionally actions would fall into a gray area. A few years later when sex discrimination came to the forefront, it was even harder to define, especially when sexual banter was acceptable to some women and not to other women.

So we sat down and made our own rules... me (a white Southern guy), a Puerto Rican woman, a young black guy from Detroit, and an older black guy. Keep in mind, we had FAR more power than you have. We could destroy careers, and sadly we sometimes did, but what we really wanted to do was change behaviors.

Our rules were...

1. If you reverse the actions (or ranks) of the individuals, would it discrimination?

2. Do we recommend punishment or is a reprimand enough? Should the reprimand be written or verbal? (A written reprimand is a BIG deal in the military.)

3. If it's a reprimand, who should do it? What should it be? (Sometimes, we'd recommend that I give a verbal reprimand instead of the commanding officer. My reprimand, behind closed doors, was merely a chewing out... after it was over, nothing permanent happened, but I would make grown men cry in those reprimands. It was for their own good. Their behavior HAD to change.)

For LetsRun, you have a much easier role. Your golden rule should be...

1. Be civil or you will be banned.

2. Don't say anything to anyone that you wouldn't say to their face. If you would say it to their face, but it violates rule 1, you'll still be banned. Be civil.

You be the judge of what that means. If you try to set boundaries, trolls are going to try to push them.

If people step over the line, ban them for a short time but long enough to send a message... 24 hours maybe... longer if the offense is deemed more egregious. If they argue or try to work around the ban, ban them for a week or a month or if it's a severe violation of rule 1, ban them indefinitely.

Personally, I'd do away with the "registration" policy you currently have. It's nearly worthless. Require registration through Facebook. Lock threads to registered users only more often.

You could attract more elite runners, coaches, and authors here if you cleaned up the trolls.

fisky wrote:

You could attract more elite runners, coaches, and authors here if you cleaned up the trolls.

Except that I don’t know if they are interested in cleaning up the trolls. Especially not when baiting, polarizing threads based on false premises are not only allowed by the moderators, but started by them.

This is a behavior that can change, but will it?

wejo wrote:

XCfanatic wrote:

I wonder why we never get a reply to this question.

Has M.ke successfully sued the Brojos?

Mike Rossi has not threatened us with any legal action. The threads on him quickly spiraled out of control with calls for violence and since he's not longer running, we just started pulling them down.

But why can't we even mention his name? We can mention Kip Litton, Rosie Ruiz... but mention M!ke and your message or the whole thread is gone.

And there are still developments in his case, it's sad that we can't discuss them. His thread was the most successful one in the history of LRC, it's what made me visit this website daily.

casual obsever wrote:

And yet another unprovoked personal attack by rekrunner:

rekrunner wrote:

"Neutral observer" seems unlikely to be described as "grossly unfair and reckless to state, infer or imply differently". Maybe you meant "casual observer".

I officially reported this one. First time I reported anything. Let's say what will happen next.

Nothing happened of course. Evidently letsrun decided against wejo's point 7:

wejo wrote:

7) The one debate we are having internally is whether to ban people who are uncivil or make personal attacks. I think they should be banned. You can disagree with someone without name calling . Disagree with them on the facts.

Same old, same old.

Michael Smores wrote:

fisky wrote:

You could attract more elite runners, coaches, and authors here if you cleaned up the trolls.

Except that I don’t know if they are interested in cleaning up the trolls. Especially not when baiting, polarizing threads based on false premises are not only allowed by the moderators, but started by them.

This is a behavior that can change, but will it?

I don't understand why all of the nonrunning threads are allowed. I don't need or want a one-stop shop for all of my commenting needs. In fact, I don't comment anywhere else--on blogs, news sites, wherever--or read comments anywhere else because it's always a race to the bottom, and the ill-informed political opinions of anonymous strangers are pointless and, probably, harmful. Such comment threads are the worst thing on the internet...so why does LR feature them? Allowing such threads ensures that the worst trolls and shut-ins will come to LR and spread their idiocy over all of the threads. The perspective of a runner on Trump or on gun rights is no more useful to me, a runner, than the perspective of a nonrunner on those same topics. Banning trolls would also be helpful, but just restricting posts to actual running-related topics would be better. Threads or posts addressing/attacking mostly nonprofessional regular people should be restricted unless there's a news or current events element. For instance, the Frank Meza thread and the trans girls in CT or Semenya threads seem worthy (even if they often go off the rails). Threads about some random Instagram person or about, say, Allie Kieffer's dating life have no purpose, are ugly, and should be removed.

fisky wrote:

[Personally, I'd do away with the "registration" policy you currently have. It's nearly worthless. Require registration through Facebook. Lock threads to registered users only more often.

This would be awesome!

I think what is more likely is a determination that there was no uncivil or personal attack. Your post was provocative, questioning the neutrality of posters you don't agree with. My response was civil and fact based. My response attacked your statements, inferences, and implications, and judgement of non-neutrality, not your person. I did not resort to name-calling. Wejo's point 7 seems inapplicable.

casual obsever wrote:

casual obsever wrote:

And yet another unprovoked personal attack by rekrunner:

I officially reported this one. First time I reported anything. Let's say what will happen next.

Nothing happened of course. Evidently letsrun decided against wejo's point 7:

wejo wrote:

7) The one debate we are having internally is whether to ban people who are uncivil or make personal attacks. I think they should be banned. You can disagree with someone without name calling . Disagree with them on the facts.

Same old, same old.

wejo wrote:

BergLaufer wrote:

Off topic: Wejo, while you're here. Did you get my email over Hoka?

Yes but I didn't email them until yesterday. Shoes should be on way this week.

Almost two weeks ago, still no shoes.

what about all the threads that talk about concentration camps?

I'd be afraid to post my honest feelings here for fear of political blowback. Publicly speaking, they are doing a fair job.

I think some people also forget is they know people IRL and are connected, so that is why certain posters aren't banned--they know them in IRL and are friends/connections with them through the track/XC community.

This board reminds me of the old Topix forums on each city in the US that were shut down. Although they had trolls, you got town comings and goings and real-time info vs. filtered news sites with TOO much moderation. So there is some good with this site; the moderation could be tighter but you don't want it too tight.

trash showing up on the epstein thread. are you actually going to change ANYTHING about how these boards function?

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=9510645&page=1

Same as it ever was. Another Epstein thread devolves into bashing of ALL jews for being mentally ill, controlling, paranoid, responsible for every world problem.

wejo wrote:

Some of the examples in this thread itself shows how moderation isn't easy. There was a link to a thread about an an Australian Diplomat calling for emergency visas for white farmers. It linked to an article in the NY Times.

Some said it was racist or race baiting. I can understand where they are coming from. Others were fine with it.

I reported this thread a day or two ago (maybe not for the first time) and it's finally deleted now. The problem in this case wasn't the article but the title of the thread -- the thread title ended with "...for White South African farmers - They know there will be a genocide"

But the article itself didn't say anything about genocide. And the article is mostly about the ridiculousness of the politician who made the comment. So the post was pretty clearly race-baiting.

I didn't read all the posts on this thread so maybe it was noted before, but the anti-semitism in this forum is awful. The people making those posts are not runners.