Official thread to discuss moderation policies

tempaccountforsomeBS wrote:

David S wrote:

(and again, I only looked at the first 20 hits so take it as a sampling)

Wasn't there one where he predicted the medalers at the next Worlds or Olympics and every single one of them was white, including people ranked nowhere near the top 20 in their events.

I mean , that post alone is not egregious, just one more idiotic example of racism and race-baiting in a posting history full of them, but it's just funny that this is the guy that Malmo decides to plant his flag behind as a 'victim' on this board of 'false' accusations of racism.

I havent planted my flag behind Coevett, I simply used him as an example of malicious character assasination. I've never seen racist post by Coevett, nor have I ever seen racist posts by him reported.

If those posts that you posted are real he should have been banned. Just as if your had ever threatened Coevett with violence then you should be permanently banned. That is one line that should never be crossed.

So did you threaten Coevett with violence or not?

If you really think I'm in Coevetts corner you had better ask the Brojos what my stated opinion of him really is. I'm almost in 100% disagreement with his opinions. I'm also rarely attracted to the threads he's in. My only interest in them is to keep order, as most of those threads start and finish with constant hostility. If there internal hostilities with each other were confined to the same thread I'd never look at it. The real problem with threads like those involving Coevett is the spillover to ther threads which ends up ruining this for everyone on the message.

I've most definitely never threatened him in any way.

I don't even know what Corvette is talking about and I hardly ever bother responding to him or even read his posts.

Good to know you don't back Coevette. Would be good to have those posts verified and him banned like he deserves.

Wejo and Rojo,

Do what you want. It's your business. You don't have to explain yourself to me.

malmo wrote:

I havent planted my flag behind Coevett, I simply used him as an example of malicious character assasination. I've never seen racist post by Coevett, nor have I ever seen racist posts by him reported.

Since when is it malicious to call a racist a racist? Ever noticed how often Coevett calls other people racist?

malmo wrote:

If those posts that you posted are real he should have been banned.

How many more times do we have to prove that they are real?

I actually don't have a problem of racists posting here. letsrun is known for that. But I do find it ridiculous that a mod openly defends that racist a la " I've never seen racist post by Coevett" and "false charges of racism" and "Your plight has not gone unnoticed.".

Quite frankly, you should have the decency to step down instead of still pretending that those posts may not be real. Short of that, the owners should fire you.

And yes, I am saving this post too.

I looked at that thread, and humm, very suspicious. Two "quotes" by the Suck the Truth guy, both giving the appearance that Coevett said it. Neither quote has an audit trail to the original, but if fact, appear to be fabricated from whole cloth.

I havent seen any evidence that Coevett has ever said anything that vulgar. But I have seen mountains of evidence that anonymous trolls lying about and fabricating falsehoods attributed to the objects of their obsessions. Nothing new here. It's a common tactic on this message board.

You're nuts. The proof is what you wrote.

malmo wrote:

I looked at that thread, and humm, very suspicious. Two "quotes" by the Suck the Truth guy, both giving the appearance that Coevett said it. Neither quote has an audit trail to the original, but if fact, appear to be fabricated from whole cloth.

I havent seen any evidence that Coevett has ever said anything that vulgar. But I have seen mountains of evidence that anonymous trolls lying about and fabricating falsehoods attributed to the objects of their obsessions. Nothing new here. It's a common tactic on this message board.

Is this Coevett character British ? I ask because nobody in the UK ever spells the word "colour" as "color" (from one of the possibly fabricated posts), seriously even the most illiterate people do not spell it this way.

The original was here, as google still knows, deleted by a mod:

Google still finds this deleted statement:

As a mod, you can find the originals much easier than I could.

And this here is still on letsrun:

And this one:

And this one:

malmo wrote:

You're nuts. The proof is what you wrote.

Nice discussion style, Mr. Moderator.

here's the original thread. it took 2 seconds to find. it is now deleted but since you are a mod you can still see it.

Anti-Doping website calls for Kenya to be banned from athletics

ExpertKipWatcher wrote:

Is this Coevett character British ? I ask because nobody in the UK ever spells the word "colour" as "color" (from one of the possibly fabricated posts), seriously even the most illiterate people do not spell it this way.

Not "possibly fabricated", but allegedly fabricated, according to malmo. The original is here:

Anyway, gotta go.

If you're serious about this then train your staff so they know what to look for. I've attended and facilitated a ton of race/gender/bias/disability trainings in my line of work. It really isn't that hard knowing who visits this website and seeing thread titles to know when/where you might need to step in. But, you need to know what to be looking for in the first place and you might agree with something that you should be removing. I think it's worthwhile, with a platform like this, to pay for a training for your staff. Make folks uncomfortable. Push people outside their comfort zones. Bring in new ideas.

I also think it would be a good idea to bring in someone who checks off a different box -- i.e. it's only white men who work for LRC. Maybe bring in a non white or female editor to review articles. Maybe pay a small fee to have someone with a background in equity/inclusion to moderate the boards, to post from an LRC staff handle.

Yes, not everything is removable. There are plenty of things that I don't like that I don't report. But, it would be nice to see a staff member of LRC voice some dissent on certain things/issues because, by not doing so, it creates a culture around here about what is okay to say.

ExpertKipWatcher wrote:

malmo wrote:

I looked at that thread, and humm, very suspicious. Two "quotes" by the Suck the Truth guy, both giving the appearance that Coevett said it. Neither quote has an audit trail to the original, but if fact, appear to be fabricated from whole cloth.

I havent seen any evidence that Coevett has ever said anything that vulgar. But I have seen mountains of evidence that anonymous trolls lying about and fabricating falsehoods attributed to the objects of their obsessions. Nothing new here. It's a common tactic on this message board.

Is this Coevett character British ? I ask because nobody in the UK ever spells the word "colour" as "color" (from one of the possibly fabricated posts), seriously even the most illiterate people do not spell it this way.

In the year 2019 you shouldn't play detective with spelling and grammar. Auto-complete is destroying the written language one tweet at a time.

But you do have a good point there.

That quote with that spelling is paraphrasing Coevett from a page or two earlier in the thread. It is interesting that the registered Coevett spells it the same way. Make of it what you will, but not fabricated.

Here is the original: (not really an interesting post on it's own, just showing that it wasn't fabricated.)

ok Malmo here is the smoking gun. Registered handle. Clearly not a fabrication. Ban this fool already.

Coevett wrote:

I lived in London most of my adult life and I've met just about every nationality on Earth, and the Kenyans I encountered were amongst the most stupid of all.

It's funny that people have been pointing out this guy as racist for years and LRC still defends him and attacks the accusers instead of actually doing anything about him. This is why it is so hard to take LRC seriously when they pretend to want to clean things up. They end up attacking the people trying to help. Can the charade end now? Coevett needs to be banned for life.

link to thread:

Why are there so few Kenyans and Moroccans in Masters ranking lists?

I read the thread, and Coevett reacted in surprise to the "dildo" quote that was attributed to him, so it does not appear that he was the source. It's easy to attribute a bogus quote to someone else. Unless someone can find Coevett's original post, it seems you've been taken in by a troll. Look here:

tempaccountforsomeBS wrote:

I hate babies.

See how easy that was? In addition, posters use characters which appear similar to each other: HeIIo (with 2 capital I's) or Hello (with 2 lowercase l's), which appears to be the same word, depending on the fonts you are using. This technique is often often used to make a post appear to come from a different user, in order to make them look bad. If in any doubt, copy the username to notepad and check it there. The console fonts should make these differences clear to you.

These types of issues illustrate some of the difficulties presented in moderating this forum. For the most part, I think LetsRun does a good job of upholding its TOS. I would rather risk being offended than to have someone else decide what is offensive, and I think it is appropriate to err on the side of free speech rather than censorship.

The only suggestion I can offer might be something like I've seen on some other sites. Some sites allow people to flag content as offensive, and after a certain number of hits, they hide the particular comment so that you have to click a button to unhide it.

I think that's a little cumbersome, but something like a filter might be manageable. At the top of the page you could have various filter settings like "Registered Users Only", "Racist", "Violent", "NSFW", "Transphobic", etc, and leave it to the user whether or not they want to have those posts which have been flagged as such omitted from their view.

Toadlips wrote:

I read the thread, and Coevett reacted in surprise to the "dildo" quote that was attributed to him, so it does not appear that he was the source.

Who knows, I can't read the original thread anymore because it was deleted.

On the other hand, the thread i just posted above is posted under Coevett's registered handle.

I don't recommend LetsRun to other runners because of the trolls. Many top runners avoid it for the same reason. Some posts are so uncivil that it's embarrassing to be associated with a forum that attracts such people.

The brojos have their own objectives for this business (LetsRun is a business) and I don't know what those spoken and unspoken objectives are. So instead of saying what they should do, let me say what I would do.

If I owned LetsRun, I would take aggressive steps to limit trolling. Here is what I would do.

1. Immediately limit posting to registered posters.

2. Immediately prevent newly registered posters from posting for 7 days.

3. Immediately limit new registration to Facebook or Google accounts. It would prevent trolls from creating a temporary email address to get around registration requirements. Handles could still be used instead of real names to provide a veil of anonymity for posters.

4. Grandfather in existing registered posters with a strict warning that if they violate the Terms and Conditions of registration, they WILL BE INDEFINITELY BANNED WITH NO WARNING.

5. A stronger warning against personal attacks would be added to the Terms and Conditions.

6. Posters making comments deemed "uncivil" about minors would be indefinitely banned with no warning.

7. I would add a clause in Terms and Conditions that posters who violate the Terms and Conditions have specifically given up any right to anonymity and that they authorize their names to be posted publicly on this website or any other website. (Attorneys would have to work out the wording of this.)

This might temporarily affect viewership and revenue, but after a temporary setback, it might attract many top runners back to LetsRun. Wouldn't it be great to have a discussion with coaches, Olympians, and top runners who knew that they could post without fear of anonymous trolls attacking them?

Even if it affected the bottom line, I would sleep better at night knowing that I was providing a quality service for the running community. Life isn't just about money.

malmo wrote:

In the year 2019 you shouldn't play detective with spelling and grammar. Auto-complete is destroying the written language one tweet at a time.

But you do have a good point there.

In Chrome, if I type color it underlines it with a wavy red line, if I type colour it doesn't (on a laptop). I haven't done anything special to make this happen in terms of settings other than the Windows regional settings.