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

Yes, it true that conversations are being completely deleted. Moderators should consider whether the person (human being) is insulting the other person (human being). Did they swear or cuss? Are they respecting people? Everyone including the person who started the thread has a job to do. Unfortunately, we do wipe out total communication this way.

You poor bigoted snowflake 😥

I’m glad to hear there is some accountability. But just talking to them is not going to be enough. You’ve got to change the way you handle moderation on this board. A couple of pages ago I wrote a post with several suggestions. I hope it helps.

Here is my post on this thread from a month ago. The moderation needs to change, not be merely adjusted. The system is unsound.

Well this thread is about a year old and 35 pages long. Never expected that. Given that so many people are dissatisfied with the moderation, and I want to do more than just complain, here are my suggestions.

1. Instruct the moderators to ONLY delete posts or threads that are violent, threatening, doxxing, pornographic, or openly racist. That means use of racist words, not alleged innuendo or whatever.

2. Do not allow moderators to delete posts critical of certain runners, unless the post meets the requirements in #1. The “system” we have now, which is essentially a moderator free for all, guarantees that some runners will be protected more than others. This is hypocritical, irritating, and stifles discussion. The ONLY exception is for runners still in high school. They are still kids and should not be asked to handle heavy criticism online. Everyone else is fair game. It’s the price of being great.

3. Do not allow moderators to delete a thread just because they think it is silly or stupid or trolling. That is not their judgment to make. They ONLY delete posts and threads that meet the criteria outlined in #1.

4. Do not allow moderators to delete posts or threads because they disagree with the political viewpoint being expressed. That is not their job, see #1. As it stands now, there are some moderators who are clearly conservative, and others that are clearly leftist. Their deletions reflect their political biases, and both sides of the political debate are justified in complaining that they are being targeted. It doesn’t help the site, and pisses everybody off.

5. Do not allow moderators to delete posts or threads that are critical of moderation. As it stands now, it’s impossible to discuss moderation anywhere outside of this thread. And frankly, the moderators delete as many posts as they can from this thread. Heck, one of them banned me for criticizing the moderators on this very thread. I had to go to Weldon to get the ban removed. Regardless of the intention, it makes it look as if the moderators are really in charge of the site and are aggressively suppressing any discussion of the job they do, which is irritating to regular members, and unhelpful to management.

6. Don’t allow moderators to unilaterally ban anyone. The decision to ban should rest with the brothers. Moderators make recommendations, but that is all. It is possible that this will actually save the brothers time, because I suspect practically every ban is challenged, meaning the brothers have to take time to make a ruling about it anyway.

7. Review every moderators work quarterly. Ensure that they are abiding by these rules. If not, get new moderators.

Moderation is a necessary evil. Every forum needs it. But it needs to be limited, carefully controlled, and used to enhance the site, not reduce it.
What are your thoughts? What would you add, change, or delete?

This is subjective, but over the past few days I’ve noticed an exorbitant number of troll posts, and posts complaining about board rules and aggressive moderation. There is a simple lesson here. Harsh moderation breeds more trolling. People don’t like to be treated rudely, and when they are they’ll tend to use fake names and post crazy stuff, just to try to get one over on the authorities.

A place to start is my post above. Consider board moderation in a new way.

Fascinating thread concerning moderation that ran for several hours. For some reason Wejo locked it from replies. I do not know why. A lot of very interesting anecdotes about useful and fun threads that were deleted, including (in at least one case) a thread that Wejo termed “fascinating.”

I was sad to learn that Wejo hasn’t looked at this thread for months. This is a mistake I believe. I emailed him (again) my suggestions above.

I don’t know if the presumption here that all ban appeals are reviewed by the Jo’s is correct. Have they confirmed it? All I got in response for appealing a ban for incorrectly being identified as a spammer for asking a genuine cholesterol question was a “Denied” decision with no explanation. It’s impossible for a human that actually read the post and my appeal to think of it as spam (or for that matter disrespectful or any of the usual suspect reasons).

I get the sense that either the Jo’s don’t review bans or if they do, just don’t care. It’s a forever ban on an IP that’s still in place and potentially affects innocent people because it’s a public place’s IP.

I agree. Good moderation appears (to me) to be difficult to implement (manpower intensive) though simple in concept.

Moderators who delete posts for political reasons, or for reasons of personal bias or vendettas, or because they think “this post is stupid” should be fired immediately.

Pornography, physical threats, doxxing, criticism of high school runners, and overt racism (not threads complaining about crime or Kenyan positive tests) should be removed. Everything else should stay. Yeah, some people might get their precious feelings hurt because someone else is rude to them. Welcome to life in the 2020s internet. I think everyone would discover that this site is used by people who want to discuss a variety of topics. In my humble opinion this is fine. Those who only want to discuss triple threshold training or Summer of Malmo have their space. I will never join them, but I respect that this site provides that essential place.

Those who insist that every post should be directly related to running need to understand that LRC probably would struggle to keep the lights on with that business model. I have no inside knowledge, but I can’t imagine this site making money populated entirely by people who run 60 mpw and want to talk about that.