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  • RE: Locked threads

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General discussion about the RAILROAD.NET site, forums, or content ONLY. Please do not post your general railroading questions, please choose an appropriate forum. For help using the site, please post in the Help Using RAILROAD.NET Forum.

Moderator: Jeff Smith

 #288745  by Otto Vondrak
 
1) No one is stepping down from moderator duties. Erik and John have not done anything at this time to warrant disciplinary action of any type, at least not in my eyes.

2) There are clear forum guidelines posted at the Amtrak forum. If your post doesn't meet these guidelines, it is subject to removal. This includes blatant, meaningless political attacks, outright lies, and any type of meaningless one-liner (your "Me, too!" posts).

3) If a conversation has nothing to do with Amtrak, it is subject to be locked or removed. Dave, I appreciate your suggestion for "pointers" but I think we can do without for now.

This applies to every other forum out there, too, not just Amtrak. Once again, if you feel this site's policies are too restricting, are in error, or just think I have my head stuck in a very dark, anatomically impossible place to reach, then this migth not be the right place for you.

Patience pays dividends.

-otto-

 #288754  by UPRR engineer
 
John_Perkowski wrote:
10 hours a week focusing on this forum. Trust me, I have other uses for this time.
Sounds like to me he's asking for a break. (dont demote him) A month or two of not clicking on those Mod buttons might do him so good, he can see that things wont spin out of control.

I kinda doubt on how much you see Otto buddy, on here today alot i see. (Four day weekend?)

Dont get mad Otto, but... :-D Are you blowing us off? Your the Boss, and some of us are unhappy? Whats the plan here dude? Wait it out? We dont have enough time for John hard head to turn soft. Want to some more examples of what ive saw that was uncalled for coming from him? Maybe you should try to rub some of your patience off on John??

Thanks for putting up with this crappy topic.

 #288761  by gp80mac
 
At least he blows us off in a nice and kind manner.

LOL.

 #288772  by F3A
 
I have just completed a rescrub of the Amtrak Forum "Guidelines". This particular point (authored by Mr. Perkowski) stands out:

John Perkowski adds:

The Golden Rule applies at all times. It does not matter if you are talking about a fellow Member or a policymaker; criticize the policy, civilly, never criticize the Member or policymaker.


So my point of contention is, we have addressed concerns regarding editing policy, and unfortunately we have been shot down at least three times since this thread started, and twice with a suggestion that "if you don't like it go elsewhere".

I'm confused...we are civil...we have addressed a concern amongst posters, yet we are being shot down.

Are we in fact being blown off?

 #288775  by F3A
 
I have extracted this section from the legal disclaimer of the railroad.net site as a whole. I call your attention to the following guidelines:

http://www.railroad.net/legal/use/index.php

In connection with your use of the Site, you agree you will not:

1. Transmit any message, information, data, text, software or images, or other content ("Material") that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, or otherwise objectionable that may invade another's right of privacy or publicity;
2. Impersonate any person or entity, including but not limited to, an RRNET official, forum leader, guide or host or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity;
3. Post or transmit any Material that you do not have a right to reproduce, display or transmit under any law or under contractual or fiduciary relationships (such as nondisclosure agreements);
4. Post or transmit any Material that contains a virus or corrupted data;
5. Delete any author attributions, legal notices or proprietary designations or labels that you upload to any communication feature;
6. Use the Site’s communication features in a manner that adversely affects the availability of its resources to other users (e.g., excessive shouting, use of all caps, or flooding continuous posting of repetitive or unrelated text);
7. Post or transmit any unsolicited advertising, promotional materials, "junk mail", "spam," "chain letters," "pyramid schemes";
8. Violate any applicable local, state, national or international law;
9. Upload or transmit any Material that infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights of any party;
10. Delete or revise any Material posted by any other person or entity;
11. Manipulate or otherwise display the Site by using framing or similar navigational technology, or
12. Register, subscribe, attempt to register, attempt to subscribe, unsubscribe, or attempt to unsubscribe, any party for any RRNET product or service if you are not expressly authorized by such party to do so.


Shouldn't these be the baseline "commandments" we as a site should be following....uniformly? That is to say instead of making up rules from one forum to the next?

 #288788  by Otto Vondrak
 
UPRR Engineer- with all due respect, I see a lot more than you think. ;-) No one needs a break, no one is overstepping their bounds. And I don't mind discussing disagreements at all. Though, when I keep giving the same answer over and over again, it might be a good idea to consider an exploration in another direction. Motly because I've stated my position, I don't know what else to tell you right now, and I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm brushing anyone off.

F3A- These basic guidelines are indeed enforced by the Moderators and the Site Administrators. Just like you have mainlines and industrial tracks, not every forum at RAILROAD.NET has the same amount of traffic, and don't even carry the same type of traffic! Are you implying that the Moderator of the Amtrak forum has the same job as the moderator of the Tumbleweed Western discussion?

To clarify, I think "policymaker" in John's guidelines refers to people who make public policy, like politicians. He is asking that people discuss the merits of an idea, and not the person presenting said idea. He is not talking about this site's policymakers. Besides, I'm pretty thick skinned.

Once again, I will put out my famous offer: call me up. Only two people in the history of this site have ever taken me up on the offer. I don't bite, I won't yell at you, and I won't hang up. Maybe email and posts aren't the effective way to discuss your problem. Send me an e-mail and I'll send you my cell phone number and we can chat ad naseum about the issues plauging this insignificant railroad enthusiast site.

-otto-

PS- Think of the humor value if I locked a thread titled "Locked Threads." It would be ironic and clever.

I hate clever jokes. They make me feel dumb.

 #288807  by Irish Chieftain
 
Most of you choose to hide behind the anonymity of your handles
Most of us are longtime users of the forums that have been under the domain name Railroad.net as well. Some of the people that Mr. Norman have invited from other forums seem to have stepped on the former spirit of this particular forum, I might add, including Mr. Norman himself (and for the most part, it was not mean-spirited without the need for moderation, which was one of the things that we enjoyed about the original RRNET). BTW, here is a RRNET post that contains my real name (it's not hard to find)—this from the original RRNET. Unless anonymity per se becomes an issue that the webmasters choose to address, I won't repost my real name here.

 #288817  by David Benton
 
Ahhh , the good old days . ( i still remember the cat food jokes for the Janesville train , and the guy who would bring greasy burritos into just about every amtrak thread ! )
I thought the forums were for discussion for entertainment purposes . Guidelines to keep it clean and friendly make sense . But this guided discussion business doesnt sit well .
I'd of thought when the "the folks at 60 mass"( i presume that means Amtrak's head office ) read the Amtrak forum , they're looking for entertainment , insights into what passengers think of thier service , and perhaps some "left field" ideas into improving service . I don't think they will get that from moderated discussion . they want to hear what people really think , not what the moderators think is appropiate .
But as i said above , I don't think that is the intended function of the forum anyway . Surely a group like NARP is the vechicle for that .
The other thing i don't like , is been told to put a space before a comma , or is it not to put a space before a comma , ( i've probably done it wrong throughout this post !) , i just about choked when i got that pm , that to me is excessive moderation . maybe i'm just oversensitive from having my secretary nag me about it , but in an entertainment forum , does it really matter ?

 #288820  by pablo
 
Holy shinola David. Please tell me you really didn't get a PM about comma usage. Please. Tell me it was a joke.

I'll wait to reply snarkily until I hear from you.

Dave Becker

 #288832  by F3A
 
pablo wrote:Holy shinola David. Please tell me you really didn't get a PM about comma usage. Please. Tell me it was a joke.

I'll wait to reply snarkily until I hear from you.

Dave Becker
Don't forget the use of "Mister". Heaven forbid you forget to address someone as "Mister.

 #288835  by pablo
 
If someone got a PM about comma usage, that's the end of it for me. It'll be on.

dave Becker

 #288836  by David Benton
 
now i'll spend all day wondering what a shinola is , and how one replies snarkily , :wink: .
no i didn't get a pm specifically about comma useage , it was tacked onto a pm aobut my atrocious spelling , which i admit can be bad , but usually readable . ( well i can read it most of the time! ) .

 #288842  by pablo
 
OK, as an English teacher, I'll have to calm down. I just wonder if things could be done in a more proactive way.

And you don't put a space on either side of the comma, but you've probably heard that before.

And, last but not least....shinola is where poop comes from. You know, s**t from shinola...

Dave Becker

 #288845  by F3A
 
pablo wrote:OK, as an English teacher, I'll have to calm down. I just wonder if things could be done in a more proactive way.

And you don't put a space on either side of the comma, but you've probably heard that before.

And, last but not least....shinola is where poop comes from. You know, s**t from shinola...

Dave Becker
Shinola was a type of shoe polish from years ago. Its an old expression used for people who are...well...not too smart.

Example: "He doesn't know s**t from Shinola."

 #288846  by Irish Chieftain
 
For the record, "Shinola" is a defunct brand of shoe polish (as mentioned). The brown coloration, apparently, and possibly its texture when out of the can, was reminiscent of a certain cocktail of organic compounds whose main pigment is bilirubin, hence the expression (one who could not tell one from the other was of questionable intelligence).
Last edited by Irish Chieftain on Fri Sep 01, 2006 11:36 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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