Forum Manners

mlemieux1978

New Member
I just saw that the "A laser costs how much?" thread has been closed, apparently because the poster in question is "so rude!". While I GREATLY appreciate this forum and its creators and administrators for running it, I'm also pretty sure thats not a good reason for closing a thread.

I agree, writing in bright colors and all caps is hard on the eyes, and that the poster's tone was often one of exasperation which made it a little tough on the brain, but it was in the laser politics portion of the forum, and the guy was posting there because of a general lack of support from the class's governing body. If I lived in central america, I'd be feeling a little let down by the class too. If somebody is willing to try that hard to buy a new laser at something like a good worldwide price and they think we as an organized body of laser owners might be able to help, maybe we should take the time to listen.

Is there a good set of forum ettiquette posted somewhere? I try hard to be polite when ever i post.:rolleyes:

Anyway, rant over. Again, to the moderators and admins, thanks again for doing an excellent job running this great site.

Mike
 
Sorry to burst youir bubble but, caring about prosperity of the game and the fun had by the sailors is NOT a priority for the ILCA.

The ILCA is a puppet organization run by and for the builders of Lasers. The officers are to say only what the builders want to hear and nothing else. If an officer of the ILCA AT ANY LEVEL is participating in discusions about Lasers, the officer will be taking positions and spreading EXACTLY the information he is told to spread by the builders.

Unless there are builders who feel there is a profit to be made by selling Lasers in South America, there will be no Lasers sold there.

You are sailing in treacherous waters. I suggest you stop questioning anything related to the ILCA operations until such time as you are certain personal and financial attacks against you can bring no harm to you, your family or your friends..
 
I'm sure you are correct there. How do I attain your level of jedi ILCA/Laserperformance/vanguard imperviousness? Seriously though, you are right, they don't care. If they did they wouldn't build the way they do and sell the way they sell. I grew up in RI and visited the vanguard factory when I was in the 8th grade. I saw a laser laid up start to finish in the course of a field trip. I just thought we should let that guy share his pain a little bit. My eyes still hurt though.
 
I'm sure you are correct there. How do I attain your level of jedi ILCA/Laserperformance/vanguard imperviousness? Seriously though, you are right, they don't care. If they did they wouldn't build the way they do and sell the way they sell. I grew up in RI and visited the vanguard factory when I was in the 8th grade. I saw a laser laid up start to finish in the course of a field trip. I just thought we should let that guy share his pain a little bit. My eyes still hurt though.

I agree. I don't understand the reason behind closing the thread. The guy has a point and he is just trying, (in broken english) to get someone to listen. Where else can he get a dedicated Laser sailing audience? I saw no harm in it.
 
Come on guys!

Do you guys really believe that the Laser Class doesn't care about the South American (or any) Region? The same Laser Class that prides itself on having the largest participation, in terms of countries in the world, at its world championships? And the largest participation in the Olympics? Among the largest overall participation of any class in the world? Does that sound like a class that would just "throw away" an entire continent?
 
Come on guys!

Do you guys really believe that the Laser Class doesn't care about the South American (or any) Region? The same Laser Class that prides itself on having the largest participation, in terms of countries in the world, at its world championships? And the largest participation in the Olympics? Among the largest overall participation of any class in the world? Does that sound like a class that would just "throw away" an entire continent?

So, are saying everything Dr. Loser was going on about is not true and a baseless rant?

He's been going on about this for months. Why hasn't anyone addressed it before Merrily decided to shut it down which begged us to ask the question?
 
So, are saying everything Dr. Loser was going on about is not true and a baseless rant?

He's been going on about this for months. Why hasn't anyone addressed it before Merrily decided to shut it down which begged us to ask the question?

The South American builder went out of business, there is currently no builder in South America, that is definitely true. Its a tough situation, also true. That ILCA is doing nothing, not true.

I'm not privileged to correspondence between Dr. Loser and Jeff Marin or Heini Wellmann... but based solely on what we all saw written, and pictured, on TLF about them, if that were you, how motivated would you be to include him in the loop?
 
Hi,
although time is rare for me in the moment, I have to get a little break in my absence.

1.All I understand: International Laserites are welcome to post here. Different countries means different ways to express. If it goes to far, the “eagle eyes” of the admin’s do their work. That is something, all of us did their agreement to, by accepting the rules this forum.

We here play “TLF-Game”. If one goes to far, she/he gets a penalty. It is a bit like we all have seen, more or less, at TV at the Games at the Bay of Fusan / Yellow Sea, during the past two weeks: If the “IJ”’s (aka: our TLF admins), at their inflatable, say: “Hey you! You did not follow correct the rules of the game we here play, take a little rest, and make a “720er”, if you like it or not….”. Admin’s closed the 1st Thread of Dr._Loser and now the next. They have the right to do and we have to accept it, that’s it. But the message he wanted to let us know reached us isn’t it?
I remember my words of the past:
http://www.laserforum.org/showpost.php?p=47931&postcount=13

2.Copyright is a heavy law at 1st world. The admin’s have to follow that rules or they probably get interfered with the law. I say, if the admin’s have to run the “rescue-break” in that point of view, they have their reasons. I am sure they not happy to stop a thread that already got over 10000 clicks…
Merrily found a decent way to go around the copyright, thanks for that Merrily, you are doing a good job here, I say.
Closing that thread not changes something at the issue and so, it is not relevant if it is closed or not.

Perhaps, Dr-Loser will be allowed to open a new thread at October or November, to tell us about results of the ILCA district officers meting. Would be great to read something about how the solution in that issue will be.

3.
ILCA did something, correct Tracy, But some of the officers at the ILCA (not you Tracy, of course) do sit/live in an ivory-tower it sometimes, it seems to me. Here I remember to 2004: Jeff (and probably the ILCA-President also) frequently view secretly here at TLF and Jeff also is member of TLF (posted one time at the “Rhombus”-Thread). But my opinion is, Jeff and the ILCA-Presidents (former, at 2004: Chip Johns, now: Heini) are to “chickenhearted” to discuss here with us. I am absolutely disappointed about such a behavior. I have been that in 2004 (view here http://www.laserforum.org/showpost.php?p=4574&postcount=5 - No one of the officials ever made an answer at that thread to my question, they have been to arrogant to do so, I say ) and I am, now.
Tracy (also member of the ILCA World Council) is going the right way, I say… And for that, I would like him too see him as our next ILCA-President. He is not to shy to talk with us, “the common Laserites”, to explain serious things (new mastsegment fot the Radials or the new sails etc. etc.), to fight issues with us or just have joke with us.
Jeff and Heini are very-very old men. They never understand modern ways of communication. Soon they sure have to go in retirement, in reason of their age (hopefully) and I hope things then change.

4.
Gouvernail did say:” … The ILCA is a puppet organization run by and for the builders of Lasers. The officers are to say only what the builders want to hear and nothing else. If an officer of the ILCA AT ANY LEVEL is participating in discusions about Lasers, the officer will be taking positions and spreading EXACTLY the information he is told to spread by the builders. …”

“Nothing new”, gouv. It always has been part of the game. The success of the Laser does not run without that interferences. Laser is a “monopoly builder”-class, we all know. It is our dilemma AND our chance to success in future. BUT, the CEO’s of the builders seem to be a bit like “ ‘Darth Vater’s’ en miniature” in the moment.
They can’t get enough profit and dark force to rule over us. If they not make enough money the really owners of the Laser probably decide to close the production. There are many more sorts of watersports, they are able to earn more money with.
However, as long we, the common Laserites ourselves, not “corsair” the ILCA-World-Council, nothing will change. There is a long story to tell about, how big the boat probably is, in that the “out-of-the box-boat-builders” and “severall others” sit…

Dr. Laser, aka Shevy, tried to change several tings, now he is offline here, not enough of the common Laserites (“we”) really helped him. Dr._Loser tired to bring forward some things for South America, he now lost his international platform to do that. How many of the South American Laserites did post at his threads to underline their needs??? Hmm??
Who will be the next in that line, to get frustrated ??? Not me…Although, I would like to give back my ILCA membership card 2008 to Jeff (Heini is not the correct person to address such things) for that they do not talk with us. Dr._Loser only did ask for that Jeff and/or Heini in public at TLF write a little message at TLF and “the spook” has been over at Dr._Losers threads. Okay, the way Dr._Loser used his words have been “to rough” for us (or Jeff or Heini, but do those play with toys or aren’t the rough sailors), at the northern hemisphere of the globe, but he often enough did excused himself for that. Jeff and Heini didn’t answer in front of the curtain (behind the curtain they did answer ….!!!) and so, the loop of bad words did run again, is that a wonder?? Not for me.
In Summary of 2004 up to now: those arrogant officers like Jeff or Heini (or in former times Chip Johns) only laugh about us common Laserites, is my opinion. I guess, they only care for “their” top 100 proLaserites and their image of their sailing class in relation to their ISAF and their IOC…. They are a sort of politicians: “At one side, they give little child’s small kisses, meanwhile their hands secretly do steal the sweeties out of the pockets of that child’s”( the minister of defence in the famous movie “The Hunt of the submarine “Red October” did say in a conference)… Here it is the same…..
For me it is no wonder, if this or that common Laserite loud begins to misbehave, it is a reaction of the strange behaviour of Jeff and the ILCA President.


5.
No, although I am a sailing “GER”, I am not in negotiations with “playgirl.de” to give them photos of me ;) ;)

6. Amen

LooserLu
 
The South American builder went out of business, there is currently no builder in South America, that is definitely true. Its a tough situation, also true. That ILCA is doing nothing, not true.

I'm not privileged to correspondence between Dr. Loser and Jeff Marin or Heini Wellmann... but based solely on what we all saw written, and pictured, on TLF about them, if that were you, how motivated would you be to include him in the loop?

Lu pretty much addresses this in point #3 of his post.

It would be interesting to see how much direct corespondence Heini gets from the sailors he presides over. It's not like we all own copies of Microsoft software and are trying to get direct information out of Bill Gates. Our group is finite to only a few thousand members and of those members how many actually follow our class developments???

Based on the amount of postings I see here, (and this is the only Laser dedicated web site I am aware of anywhere!) I'd bet not too many of us have ever considered e-mailing the "higher ups" of the class.

The buck stops with Heini. He is the Wal-Mart store manager of our class. Wal-Mart store managers have to deal with 100's of customers on a weekly basis. It's called "customer service".

In the US we are fortunate to have you Tracy. You are our ONLY link to the class management and we appreciate your willingness to engage us on the tough subjects. Thank you!
 
This thread is really heading down a different road from the first post. The first post was really trying to find out:

Is a moderator's view of "rude" a reason for locking a thread ?
Is there a good set of forum ettiquette posted somewhere ?

I'm agreement with the first post, I don't think the thread needed to be locked. The topic is still obviously a hot one based on the posts that follow the first one in this thread.


Here are the Terms we agreed to when we signed up.


Welcome to The Laser Forum, please read over the following rules/guidelines:
1. The Laser Forum (henceforth, TLF) will not moderate or edit a post for any reason other than spam or illegal content. For this reason, messages on this forum do not represent the official views of TLF or vBulletin/Jelsoft Enterprises.
2. TLF will not disclose your information to anyone for any reason. We may send you an e-mail occasionally with special forum announcements. You can disable these e-mails, and/or completely unregister from TLF at anytime by clicking the [Register] button on any page.
3. TLF is dedicated to allowing free speech. However, Spamming or transmitting content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another's privacy or confidentiality or copyrights, hateful, or racially, ethnically objectionable is not permitted and can result in the suspension or deletion of your membership in TLF. The severity of the measures will be determined on a case by case basis. Any specific rules of enforcement will be made public before they are applied.
4. TLF is committed to being and staying financially and administratively independent of any other Laser-related commercial or class organizations. TLF will not be shut down and the resource formed by your posts will be preserved, if necessary by offering TLF to trusted volunteers interested in taking over its financial and administrative burdens.
5. Please keep the discussion on topic within its thread. For example, do not post about mast step repairs in a thread about frostbiting. To Register and post on TLF you must include your real name and a valid email address. TLF reserves the right to change this document at any time.
6. If you think something else should go here, please register and start a thread about it. TLF Members will be glad to listen to your suggestions!




If Dr Loser's original thread remains locked, my suggestion would be to start a new thread over in the Laser Class Politics section to keep that alive and/or to add the comments from above as I don't think that many vistors to this forum bother reading this section, but they do seem to be interested in the LCP section
 
Forum etiquette partly involves not insulting yours truly (personal attack). Have I heard of Google? Indeed.

It feels like I have given Dr Loser endless support, in private messages as well as tolerating his sophomoric postings.

In part, he got what he originally wanted, a response from Heini Wellmann in the Laser World Sept 2008. It's his ego that demands a personal response.

He also expects all of us to go to bat for him. If you do so, please don't do it here. Contact the Laser powers and builders. I'm just a writer, sailor, and homemaker in Ohio trying to protect TLF from a copyright lawsuit and other misadventures.
 
Ah, the heart of the matter.......

We did get a little off track there didn't we?

Well, Dr Loser did post in Laser Politics, and after quite a run, got blocked. I posted here because it seemed relevant to this part of the forum, as online manners doesn't really apply to anything laser specific. I know that a lot of the longtime users of the site look here, as well as moderators and admins, so it seemed like a good start.

EDIT: sorry Merrily, I wasn't aware he had insulted you in a private message. I think you do a great job here, it just seemed like an important thread, though longwinded and hard on the eyes.

Mike
.
 
Forum etiquette partly involves not insulting yours truly (personal attack). Have I heard of Google? Indeed.

It feels like I have given Dr Loser endless support, in private messages as well as tolerating his sophomoric postings.

In part, he got what he originally wanted, a response from Heini Wellmann in the Laser World Sept 2008. It's his ego that demands a personal response.

He also expects all of us to go to bat for him. If you do so, please don't do it here. Contact the Laser powers and builders. I'm just a writer, sailor, and homemaker in Ohio trying to protect TLF from a copyright lawsuit and other misadventures.


Perhaps the Terms of Service should be looked at again (and revised if needed), as I don't see where being rude or insulting (which is highly subjective) is listed as a reason or cause for moderating or locking posts/threads.

I didn't see where the article in the Laser World really addressed the issue in South America of not having a licensed builder producing boats and parts in SA at a cost that they can afford.

Lastly I thought one of the strengths of an online forum that was independent of builders/class organization etc was that fact that people could freely speak their mind. Sometimes this brings issues to the surface (as well as possible solutions) that those builders/class organizations for whatever reasons aren't addressing to the satisfaction of the very people who use the product (and possibly the reason for the builder/class assoc existence in the first place).
 
The thread was closed because it wasn't going anywhere and copyrighted material was posted. I reopened the thread for your viewing and replying pleasure, even though, at this point, I don't think Dr. Loser is going to get any kind of response from ILCA officials do to the childish manner in which he was addressed the problem.

Regards,
 
This thread is really heading down a different road from the first post. ...
Okay, thanks for the hint. You have good eagle eyes ;)
If I look to the many other threads at TLF, it became a bit "usual" to get out of the topic sometimes, I guess. Here my reply above came in reason of the other replies before. Some things had to be said to that, I felt (and feel). If one reads the following replies one (me) forget about the words of the 1st text at the read, sorry.

...
Is a moderator's view of "rude" a reason for locking a thread ?
Is there a good set of forum ettiquette posted somewhere ?

I'm agreement with the first post, I don't think the thread needed to be locked. The topic is still obviously a hot one based on the posts that follow the first one in this thread.
....
I think, it is not the big problem to let locked this or that thread. Users, with the quiet permition of the admins, may easy start a new thread any time and perhaps the topic is written a bit different, but one is able to reply new. But if the replies become to "rude", who is the correct one, that should decide that ? Perhaps a poll about that or better the admins do decide? Nobody is perfect, but Merrily is donig a good work, I say again. At different areas of the world and different cultures, people do realize words in different ways. In the past, during I have been student at the technical university, I made such experiences with people of East Asia. There could be behavior or words that could offend otheres, although at the own cirlce of culture it is not an offend. Difficult to generalize a limit to what is rude and what not for our admins here at TLF...

...If Dr Loser's original thread remains locked, my suggestion would be to start a new thread over in the Laser Class Politics section to keep that alive and/or to add the comments from above as I don't think that many vistors to this forum bother reading this section, but they do seem to be interested in the LCP section

As I did say. Lets see what comes out of the ILCA meeting that Dr._Loser is telling about. I guess, a new thread to that topic at LCP perhaps would get many new interestingreplies and clicks here and perhaps dr._Loser is able to use a not so "rude" language and the repliers, also behave. (Would be nice.)

All the best
LooserLu
 
I would have closed the thread too... the guy made his point a long time ago. While I have sympathy for his position and I share his concerns that perhaps the class is not doing all it can to get boats built in S.A., the monkey pictures and whatnot were just over the top...

Arguing with and insulting the admin of this forum didnt serve his purposes....

Generally when someone asks a forum admin of they have ever heard of google, he's begging for a ban...
 
I think Lu is on target when he says it doesn't matter if the thread stays closed or not. It should probably be closed until after the sept. meeting. Its possible that different cultures have collided, as he states. I know i have the same problem at work all the time. Maybe the "google" comment was over the top. I know I wouldn't have said that. (well, not online)

This thread isn't about drloser anyway, its about ground rules. Maybe we need a more thorough user agreement, so this doesn't happen in the future. I made a tongue-in-cheek remark to StJulian the other day in a tacking tactics/upwind thread. Should that be blocked?
 
3. TLF is dedicated to allowing free speech. However, Spamming or transmitting content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another's privacy or confidentiality or copyrights, hateful, or racially, ethnically objectionable is not permitted and can result in the suspension or deletion of your membership in TLF. The severity of the measures will be determined on a case by case basis. Any specific rules of enforcement will be made public before they are applied.

That looks pretty clear to me and in reading dr losers rant he crossed this line several times and in "arguing" with the admin he was begging for enforcement. He violated the rules and I don't believe his membership was revoked he just was admonished and told to stop with his rant. I think the line between rude and abusive is pretty clear, when gouv told me I wasn't reading carefully or paying attention in a post of mine it was rude so I responded rudely in return, I was not however abusive, nor was he. We are "mostly" adults and should be old enough to know better. I think Dr. Loser crossed the line with Merrily more than once in PUBLIC posts and he should have been apologetic not argumentative.

Merrily was very fair and should be appreciated for her efforts and interest in moderating this forum. She is also a fellow Ohioan and we need more interest in Lasers here.....!

I just jumped back to the reopended forum and as I am sure all can see the manners there by ALL involved are entirely appropriate. I think Alex has learned not to argue with people who would like to be on his side!!!
 

Back
Top