As a regular forum member, I don’t have access to the behind the scene matters. So this may be something that already is in place and I am just unaware.
Sometimes it feels like mods just may not be available for extended periods. And that’s understandable! Life exists outside of this forum. If there isn’t a schedule of sorts that exists, maybe one can be made. For example, Riley is available from 2-5 to check in every so often and mod when needed. Travis is available from 8-12. Someone needs to fill that gap. A good open chatroom or discord channel can help with quick messaging between mods maybe?
Otherwise everyone here has a personality that longtime members understand but newbies may feel threatened or intimidated by. I know I was a bit in one thread and I appreciate everything @lumpy did to talk me down because at the time, that was me! My own brain candy was a bit of a mess and as a newbie I was having trouble meshing with some of the established community and mods here. I think maybe a gentile reminder if another mods sees something a little direct or harsh said by one, a private reminder can be sent. We all have things we are passionate about here. Sometimes our passions come off as aggressive when we can’t understand the tone.
Those are really my only two points I can think of that has struck me here.
Personal feelings like a post not getting attention sucks, but that’s just how it is at times.
Not understanding that a TOS limits the matters of discussion at hand is sadly something that happens too often and sometimes a soft block or timeout ban is needed. But it’s difficult to access in a situation such as above as it’s not a complete disregard for rules, but personal ideology and emotions on repeat and not actual spam.
I would recommend a rule against mention of politics and religion. It is usually a rule on most forums, servers and the like. It prevents a lot of heated and unnecessary debates.
I haven’t been involved in any of this, but as a lurker I just wanted to add:
Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, even if others disagree with those opinions. Nobody is censoring anyone for having a different opinion.
But if you start resorting to personal attacks or victimizing yourself because others are disagreeing with you, then that is where the line is drawn and when posts need to be hidden or edited as they are breaking the rules at that point.
Individuals are fully capable of getting their opinions across without resorting to ad hominem attacks or again, victimizing themselves.
IMHO, if you have to resort to that to try to “win” an argument/debate, your argument or stance had
no grounds to stand on to begin with.
My personal suggestion to this would be to initiate something much like Discord has for heated topics; specifically the ability to “slow down” an overheated topic.
I’m uncertain if the forums could be set up this way, but it might be one way to de-escalate. That way people who need to can take a minute to really think through their response, reflect on it, and decide if they are coming from a place born of traumatic response, and change their responses from there.
This type of slow down tends to force folks to remain on topic and not snip or gripe at each other in a constant back and forth.
Just figured I’d throw in my two cents as a person who vastly enjoys this forum as a place where I learn about new reptiles, new husbandry, and new morphs.
DO NOT assume that you are the only one here. I’ve put my blood, sweat and tears into my military service. I’ve seen 9 different countries in service of this one. So I take offense to that.
Now this is a cool idea. Perhaps there can be a post time limit of sorts. Mods can click a “mod button” that prevents anyone from posting to that thread for like an hour or something. So if you make a post you have to wait an hour to make another one. Then another hour subsequently.
As Hilary notes, we have the “slow” function and have utilized it on threads a few time. In some cases it has been great at tempering the tone. In others…
I was with you up until this point. I don’t think anyone was insulting your intelligence nor implying you weren’t smart enough for the topic. They were just pointing out, correctly, that the US freedom of speech applies to governmental intrusion on speech, not for a private company like MM, and that MM is not a US only forum.
No one was attacking you, this was an open discussion up until this point, in my opinion.
(responding to myself responding to the above commenter)
Also, not to sound rude (but again by your own words, I have a freedom of speech and interpretations of rudeness are all on you as the reader), but I believe coming to a forum like this with an air of humilty and being prepared to be wrong aids in open discussion and flexibility for education.
Regardless of anyone’s intellectual scores here, we are here to learn from one another, and would not be here if you didn’t want someone else’s opinion in some way. So in my opinion, being prepared to be corrected is an important part of a forum like this, and will help us all grow as keepers.
This forum is about animals. Not just reptiles and invertebrates and amphibians. There are threads about other pets as well. NONE of us, no matter how intelligent, you ASVAB score or your degree level or how many initials you can out behind or in front of your name, knows EVERYTHING about all the creatures great and small on this planet. If you can’t learn something new, or be educated in some small way about something that maybe you didn’t think about before, you are probably dead. I would hope that every member of this forum logs in here to see what new piece of information they can learn that day, or look at a cool scorpion or that favorite ball python morph that someone is working on. And if there is a chance for them to share a little of the knowledge that they themselves have gained on about a topic, then the world is a better place.
But if you come here looking for a fight or a disagreement or argument or whatever, go find a Facebook group or something to join.
I appreciate the support, that was a scary thing for me to say because I don’t like conflict, but I feel like it’s important to put into words. This isn’t Twitter, if you want to be mean here for spite or want to be so stubborn in your beliefs you refuse the possibilty of learning, this may not be the site for you.
Thank you for bringing this up! Tbh I don’t know all of the various functions that exist on the MorphMarket community forums, but I’m really happy this is one of them! I really appreciate you and t_h_wyman addressing my suggestion and letting me know it already exists and is used.
also I wanted to apologize if my suggestion came off as offensive. I genuinely believe our mods here are some of the most involved, but gentle hands I’ve experienced in any sort of community setting.
Usually an active moderator team means too much power in the hands of folks who don’t know how to wield it. Or an inactive team is ineffectual. I’ve found that the balance of power here is surprisingly…balanced. Lol. And I’m grateful for that, because I’ve learned a lot just lurking on these forums; I’m only comfortable with the bit of posting I’ve done because of the level of interaction and moderation I’ve seen.
I feel like a lot of self-moderator is expected of us as community members. Which, given we’re all adults, shouldn’t be too surprising. But I think that’s what lends us to have what I view as a healthy mix, even if it can get a bit heated from time to time.
And this goes for you as well for all of us (how we recieve words). I come here for the love of reptiles and people, I love people. I dont care if i disagree or agree, we all have something to share. Me personally, i dont feel the urge to constantly correct someone if their take is different than mine as my years of raising reptiles are anecdotal from what I percieved. Im a huge fan of the constitution but also understand how forums work. Mods here and other places have thankless jobs and I’ve also left forums due to mods that took their power too seriously or ganged up on others on certain topics. This forum has been great and honestly its the best I’ve been apart of and the mods actively participate which i love. We can all disagree and be adults about it. We agree to terms of service and thats it. Some people just arent meant to be on forums but from what I see I dont think anyone is trying to censor you. I also use the term “with all due respect” as a kind gesture to show the other person respect for the knowledge they hold, nothing more. I enjoy your contributions and hope that you dont take this as an attack on you or your character.
Most debates I’ve seen here have been pretty calm and well-handled by most, but some people just don’t back down and that’s when it gets nasty. Honestly, I think that if someone is going to be unwilling to learn and change their mindset they should just not be interacted with at all. It’s like yelling into a void. Not saying they should be banned or muted immediately, something like that requires more information.
Maybe that’s just my point of view here, I know plenty of people IRL who enjoy getting into heated debates online for fun. But maybe not if you’re a moderator? Perhaps others don’t care but it definitely feels a little weird seeing it even if I agree with the staff member. It also makes the other person way more defensive, which in turn makes everything worse. I just feel that while staff may not intend to abuse their power in an argument, they shouldn’t purposefully engage in unproductive debates like that. Especially as a staff member you should know when to stop.
I do come from larger forums where mods hardly ever talked and only ever did things like lock forums or ban people because they were so busy. I can tell that MM has a much smaller userbase than those forums and thus things like this will be much more prominent on the site. Mods will indeed engage with the community as their job is secondplace to their membership here, as stated earlier. Perhaps it’s normal here and I’m not quite used to the atmosphere of MM in which case I am wrong, but either way it’s something to think about.
I didn’t mean to type this much so:
tl;dr If someone is being stubborn just ignore them. Easiest way to avoid administrative action and being unprofessional. Even though it’s hard to not have the last word and tell people that they’re wrong.
And thank you for the compliment.
also I wanted to apologize if my suggestion came off as offensive. I genuinely believe our mods here are some of the most involved, but gentle hands I’ve experienced in any sort of community setting.