Big Question

laserbahamas

New Member
WHY was shatty007 banned... because he was 'opinionated'?

at least he would give good advice, and sensible advice. Even if he wrote about lifting weights a lot, he was trying to help others out on the forum, and not just be some stick in the sand like SOME of the other users....

He made the discussion active and was actually the only one who would show me pictures of their setup.


Thanks...


and really, if you dont like his posts JUST DONT READ THEM... but some people actually do read and gain information from them, and i have started a weight lifting program thanks to him....
 
why was shatty007 banned... Because he was 'opinionated'?

At least he would give good advice, and sensible advice. Even if he wrote about lifting weights a lot, he was trying to help others out on the forum, and not just be some stick in the sand like some of the other users....

He made the discussion active and was actually the only one who would show me pictures of their setup.


Thanks...


And really, if you dont like his posts just dont read them... But some people actually do read and gain information from them, and i have started a weight lifting program thanks to him....


bring back shatty!!!

This forum is so dead, we need some discussion around here (which shatty gave us),...

Shatty, you did this forum well, hopefully you will be back on another account soon!!! Take care bro

and BTW, there should be a section for discussion subjects other than lasers,

Yo, Mods, take a look at some of the more successful forums:
http://www.thehulltruth.com/
http://www.reeffrontiers.com/
http://www.bahamasissues.com/
 
I dont know guys, he was a little (read: lot) caustic, defensive and stuck up. Even if his information was good, it meant nothing coming from someone with no respect for some of the less experienced sailors on the forum.

As elvstrom said a long time ago, You haven't won the race, if in winning the race you have lost the respect of your competitors. even though this isn't a race, I think it means the same thing. he definitely lost my respect and evidently that of Merrily and that's who counts on here at the end of the day...
 
bring back shatty!!!

This forum is so dead, we need some discussion around here (which shatty gave us),...

Shatty, you did this forum well, hopefully you will be back on another account soon!!! Take care bro

and BTW, there should be a section for discussion subjects other than lasers,

Yo, Mods, take a look at some of the more successful forums:
http://www.thehulltruth.com/
http://www.reeffrontiers.com/
http://www.bahamasissues.com/
As a proud stick in the sand...this HUGH question belongs on "the Dockhouse".

Looks like you guys have found stellar suitable replacements for TLF...by all means enjoy...
 
Whoever the mod is here: PLEASE BAN ME.

In this world people need to develop social skills to be able to interact with others in a reasonable manner. The world does not circle around any of us, though sometimes people suffer an over inflated ego which here results in them hijacking every thread to talk about themselves (on the assumption we are all very very impressed).

The nature of forum registration (everywhere) is that if he/she wants to participate (i.e. join in the discussions give help/get help) then they can just re-register. Behave the same as before and it will be obvious what they have done. Behave sensibly and everybody is happy.

And he/she will be aware of this as when people throw their toys out of the pram on a forum they tend to check back for a bit in the hope the entire world is missing them, everybody calling for their return and waiting for that e-mail from the forum operators "Please, please come back as our forum is nothing without you ...".

If he was banned, then people were only doing what he asked them to do.

And when this thread is deleted (which it is quite rightly bound to be) I suppose we will start getting all the "Where has my thread gone ..." posts with the "What a great guy he was" contingent throwing a few more insults and threatening to leave.

But I find it more interesting reading and discussing Lasers than all this rubbish.

Ian
 
He probably wasn't banned for life. I'm guessing he was sent to time-out for a week or two.
 
I'd like to weigh in a little with my thoughts even though they tend to go against the grain, always keeping in mind that, as sailjacks said, it's Merrily's thoughts that matter at the end of the day.

First, this site is good and clean with what seems to be a lot of good people and that's really, really important. Certainly it's helped me a lot, and my boat would not have a working mast step had the good folks here not taken the time to educate, encourage and help me - so thanks!!

I ran a number of 'clean' discussion forum sites and also had to contend with difficult people and even had to ban folks by IP address ranges because they refused to leave. No stranger to danger :D

When Merrily pointed out the kerfuffle in another thread of course I had to go and look to see for myself. But I saw something different - I saw that Shatty backed off and collected his thoughts after being initially warned. To me, that counts for something and it shows me that he was able to take stock of himself and made a concerted effort to correct his behavior. I hold that in good stead.

It seemed to me that it was only when someone else jumped on him shortly thereafter that he came out swinging. The real problem, in my mind, was that he called someone an idiot. That's not good - it's a personal attack. Personal attacks never work and they tend to bring out the fighting spirit in everyone and it's easy for a site to go downhill at that point because everyone starts fighting - publicly - which makes the site look bad to newcomers.

Personal attacks tend to bring division. United we stand - divided we fall.

Having said that, I then saw a number of people personally attack Shatty in the other thread and this was not correct either. To my view it looked like people were publicly ganging up on him in a personal vendetta. As such, I felt for him.

Remember, I'm operating with the understanding that when he was warned he backed off...

For certain he should not have called someone an idiot. But he was/is very knowledgeable about physical work outs. I would suspect that he's more knowledgeable then most of the people who took part in that thread. That may be where feathers got ruffled.

I suspect a big part of the issue for him was that his knowledge and experience may not have been appreciated as he felt it should have.

I've seen this before - someone comes in, they are very knowledgeable about something and they get shot down - typically by the 'old timers' who like their site just the way it is. The poster thinks they are bringing a valuable contribution to the site, maybe even carving their own niche - but then they get shot instead.

I don't say that is what happened - only that it's a common occurence with discussion forum sites, and it is happening on this one. It's one of the nuances that, unless someone gets a handle on it, can stunt a site's growth.

Every popular site has to grow and this means that space has to be made for new folks who are knowledgable. The 'old timers' have to give some ground or some grace (usually both) until the person gets 'climatized'. The circle needs to expand a bit and growth is usually painful.

I think it's very important that people try to look for the good too. Look for signs of it. In interest, I went back over all of Shatty's posts and found that he had helped a LOT of people with GOOD answers (certainly in respect to sailing). In fact, it was only in his real 'area of expertise' that he got mad and came out swinging. Perhaps that's also indicative of that particular area of expertise - fierce competitiveness.

I suspect a big part of the issue for Shatty was facts vs. opinions. This is something Shatty touched on later and it's a very, very important point. At what point do opinions muddy the water? Are we interested in the end goal (read solution) which typically means trying to separate facts from the opinions?

I've seen many people here ruin a perfectly good thread because they posted up their 'opinion' and muddied the waters for folks who really know the facts. It's happening right now in another thread about posting... FAQ's (as opposed to facts) :D. Even though Merrily made a decision to implement the FAQ system we've still got people coming in and saying a search is better - never understanding that the search feature still works with FAQ's - it just works better....

Again, it's facts vs. opinions. Speaking for myself, I do understand some of Shatty's anger. He probably knew the facts and yet was getting bombarded with opinions that ultimately caused him to feel that taking the time post up his expertise was not appreciated.

People need to be sensitive about when it's time to post an opinion. As opinion is not the same as a fact.

Shatty touched on something else - this site is no where near as busy as it could be. FAQ's, default email notification during registration - all this stuff is just small but important steps to making the site easier to use and to increase traffic and draw new members. It's not rocket science.

I personally don't find that tried & true common sense methods like that (factual) should be open to debate and extensive opinions for the very reason that it opens the door to muddying the waters. If it makes sense just do it! If it doesn't fit 100% afterwards then just change it. Shape it, mold it, work with it. To do otherwise is to stifle growth and all sites need growth.

With respect to Shatty..Maybe it's just me but I hate writing people off. I do know that I've tried to answer people's posts on this site when they had questions and I took my time to do it. I put together a very comprehensive (and short!) post for someone in the Mast Step Issues thread.

I considered it carefully and put forward the best advice I could muster for his sake - not mine. Instead of being thanked for it or encouraged I was immediately jumped on by one of the 'old timers'. Coincidentally (or not) it was the same 'old timer' who got Shatty going again in that thread. Yet, it was Shatty that got the boot :D

The 'net result? The thread got muddied and the original poster even mentioned that later. The same person that impugned my post was the very same person that came in and impugned Shatty and got him started swinging. Curious....
 
.....


I then saw a number of people personally attack Shatty in the other thread and this was not correct either. To my view it looked like people were publicly ganging up on him in a personal vendetta. As such, I felt for him.

....
Hi.

You are talking about me, marvin-miller. In your words: Yes, correct, I did attack shatty007. In my words and opinion: I did use the same sort of "kidding", member Shatty007 did use against AlanD, and this Shatty007 did for for silly reasons. In reaction: member Shatty007 had a public issue with me (and I wouldn't have any big problems with a nice open "vendetta" with freaky new members here) and member Shatty007's reply and my reply have been deleted. I have no problem, if a reply of me is deleted here. I respect the admins for their great work and if they decide for an interfering, I wouldn't disagree. I know them for long years, not personaly, but online. And if I do behave wrong, I accept their sentence. I have learned my lessons early here. I never have seen AlanD, he is not my friend and I guess I am definitely not his friend. Its luck, we both live away of each other in a distance of ~half around the globe. But I respect him online and he me ... that's the way we both may live here together in cyber space. So, if member Shatty007 did learn his lesson,too, I guess, sure he returns. I wouldn't do a kidding to member Shatty007 again, as long he do behave same to members of TLF. Well, however, what should I say to you, marvin-miller? .. Perhaps you propose to vote to ban me to? I wouldn't have no problem with that, if you would insist for equity here. The next months/years, I would have to do so much other nice things, outside of the cyber space, that only sometimes, for a small moment, perhaps I would miss the "Laser-internet" and good friends there. I have done this before, Bradley and Merrily know that, and I would do a "big break" again, if TLF would vote for. That's forshore, two Laserites (one of them is member here...) would be the first, to vote to ban me here: Jeff M. and Heini W., my both "most loved" "big friends" ... Experienced TLF members know who I mean...

Ciao
LooserLu
...that goes downstairs, if he likes to laugh... ;)
 
I made a couple of sarcastic comments, and Marvin I can see your point about it can build up. One comment alone may seem innoucuous, but coming from everbody could seem like the whole forum is against you. However, this is not an excuse for overreacting and pushing back harder.
 
Hi LooserLu;

I wasn't thinking about you specifically - there were several people spread out across several threads that seemed to jump on the Shatty bandwagon :D You brought up something important that I thought about later - the fact that Shatty's posts may have been pruned/deleted by the admins - as such he may have looked better to me because of this ! :)

I think my points are a little deeper then who did what to whom. What I was hoping to do was draw attention to the common issues that discussion forums face and in particular, the issues that tend to prevent them from growing. (things that stunt their growth).

I'm not suggesting that you should be banned - quite the opposite - you freely admitted to jumping on Shatty and for that I give you great credit. Now then, if you understand that then understand this - it takes two to tango :) If no-one had responded in like fashion to Shatty he would have been having a conversation with himself :D

I'm as hard-headed as the next guy and usually more so :) But, if no-one comes out to play then there's little point right?

I still maintain though that it's important to look for the good and, if possible, to work with it. I saw good in Shatty. I've also banned people before on my own sites only to regret it later when I realized that it came at the cost of stiffling the growth on my site. The reason why I mention some of my mistakes is that I'm hoping people will pick up on them in case they come up on this site. I do believe Shatty was right in that this site could be a lot busier.

For 7 years I ran a discussion forum, that at it's peak, dropped into the top 5,000 sites on the Internet. It was featured many times in publications that at one time brought more then 100,000 unique visitors to the site - in one day!

So, it should have been one of the most popular forums on the Internet. I had implemented shift on the fly language translation (20 different languages) and did all sorts of things to make it #1 Yet, it never happened. Believe it or not, I never surpassed the 15,000 member mark. Site loyality however was very high spanning right over the entire 7 year run.

Looking back, one of the primary reasons I failed was that I implemented too much control. Now, granted, a site that is kept clean will always take a hit in it's popularity level. That's to be expected but there is a way to navigate between growth and control.

Talented people who give of their time are really, really valuable. I mistakenly blew off some of these folks from my site - that was one mistake I made several times and it came at the cost of the site's success.

On the other end of the scale, one common success point I eventually discovered is kindness, and more importantly, gratitude. Had Shatty been thanked for his efforts I garantee you it could easily have gone the other way - he could have become one of the most productive members of the site. This is very important and it falls on the members of the site to try and edify and encourage these people.

I'm going far off-topic here but there are a couple of things I did that helped make forum management and growth easier. I'd like to offer them up as suggestions that may or may not be of value;

User Warning System

Early on while trying to strike a balance of control vs growth I implemented a warning system on my site. Every user had 5 pips next to his name on each of his posts. Each time he was warned the pips would light up for all to see :D If he had 5 lights lit up it meant he was banned :eek:

This provided a really great visual way to provide accountability. Over time warnings get removed and the user goes back to the default level as his behavior gets shaped to the site's mandates. Each time a user got warned he got a private message that explained why his warning level went up. This is important so that the user can learn what's acceptable and what's not.

If they put up a stink for one measley warning they got 'insta banned' :D As such, it's great way of weeding out the troublemakers early on.

Since implementing the warning system nasty posts dropped like a rock. Warnings became a rare occurence.

The second thing I did was to make separate hidden forums for the people involved in the site's operation (typically moderators and global moderators). This meant that they could go in there and discuss private things amongst themselves without any of the general public reading them.

This provided a great place to shape and re-shape the mandates of the site, in private, before making those mandates public. It also ensured that we, as members of the 'inner sanctum' were in agreement and were willing to enforce those policies site-wide in the public areas.

Private internal forums, manned by trusted (and invited) people, away from the public's scrutiny can be a great place to question each other on ways to go forward and even sometimes on what our motives are or what they should be. Event rants at times (private ones) can be helpful.

This draws a line between private 'internal' matters and the public site and it's users. This is important. I've found that when 'internal' matters are opened up to the public it brings chaos. A lot of the stuff that's been going on in the site is public stuff that should be dealt with privately. But the main point is drawing a line between site operations and public opinions - otherwise nothing gets done due to paralysis by analysis :D

Or, as my momma used to say, too many cooks spoil the meal. Too many chiefs - not enough Indians. Wooops...that one may not be too PC :eek::)

Third, the best thing I ever did was promote people to positions of moderators within each forum. So, there was a separate moderator for each forum. I was the Administrator. With a separate moderator responsible for each forum my job load got WAY lighter. Managing a busy site was no longer a burden.

When I chose moderators with experience in each forum it was all the better. The problem came when people who were smarter then the forum mod came in an started posting. The really good forum moderators tend to be people with experience in an area without being an expert. They they don't care if better people then they come in and post or even take over (so to speak).

The moderator who is an 'expert' will always jump on anyone who knows more then he does and attack the poor bugger and this will always come at the cost of the site's growth as really talented people leave...

Lastly, I chose to implement a Report this Post feature so that anyone, at any time, could report a post anywhere and give a reason for the report. This works really well other then that a lot of 'newbies' tend to hit that button thinking it's the reply button :D

Bottom line - you can make a forum largely look after itself so that it's not a huge drain on anyone's time by strategic delegation of labor. Site growth can be done with minimal control and effort. Everyone can help without hindering. As new knowledgeable people get added to the mix encourage them. Make room for them wherever possible.

I really mean it when I say that the number one killer of dicsussion forum growth can be the old guard.

I realize I've gone off-track here but these things came to mind and they might be useful to the site. I'm NOT trying to be critical about how the site is modded or admin'd - just suggesting some things from my experiences/background etc.
 
Administrators and mods are forced to be "first responders" and deal sometimes head on with "active" , dynamic situations without the Monday morning quarterbacking that we have advantage of discussing now. Anytime someone draws a line in the sand and makes a "unknown blind sided" type challenge ....we don't have the luxury of predicting (and should't be forced to) of the next move.

Time is such a critical component to these situations....I'll use a recent occurrence where I popped off a crude and hurtful comment about a video that a young man posted on youtube. Before anyone knew that it was our own Laser racer ...I had Flusha and Flat respectfully and QUICKLY pointing out my obvious wrong! They were right and I am still hoping that my stupidity in that situation does not still weigh on his mind.

I think Marvin has presented some ideas that will prevent and improve. It allows for boneheaded people (like myself) to get swift correction and then earn back merrited standing...which is important. It must include amends to those who are due if one is to be taken seriously.

As for Shatty...I think there is a wealth of spirited knowlege and experience inside him...that needs to be shared. ..But never at the expense of another! Keystrokes can be used swiftly to retract or amend any heated hurtful comment. Never forget.

I think Shatty is the kind of guy you could call at 3am if you needed help and he would come running.

Thank you all for listening

Eric
 

Shatty was annoying. He rubbed people up the wrong way and ruined threads.
I congratulate the Moderators for what they did and am glad that they have drawn that line in the sand.
If we are all so worked up about this then should we start up a “Bring Back Shatty” thread with a vote on it??
Know where my vote would lay.

Been a lot of talk about the development of the Forum and encouraging new members.
You must remember that the Laser forum is specific 2 Lasers and in that is targeting a relatively small base of people.
Most people I know who sail Lasers use the Laser forum, and those don’t are not into computers.

Xflyer95, sorry I gave you a hard time about what you posted. You were right in what you said, that was a very painful vid 2 watch.
Don’t let it play on your mind, all was said in good humour and you are obviously a nice guy.:)

 
...I was implying that it is the Administrators who many times have to deal with those who draw a line in the sand...
 
Hello-
It's been a while since we've had any major conflict on TLF, however, this almost always comes up once a year or so. The forum operates under the premise that less is more. We aren't here to nit pick threads or tell you what you can or can't talk about. However, I want TLF to be a friendly and informative place where newbies are welcomed, not sarcastically chastised.

The user in question was banned for one week. This was after we sent polite emails asking him to tone down his attitude. It has been and will continue to be the policy at TLF that users who make repeated attacks of other users will be asked (and when required, told) to leave.

The management style of the forum has worked well for us as we enter our 8th year. I don't anticipate any changes in the way the forum is run or organized. We do use the report this post button and it sends emails to all the administrators. Ninety-seven percent of the time this is used to send spam reports or ask for a classified ad to be updated or deleted. I feel like the infraction system is equivalent to demerits in middle school. We are all mature enough to realize when a line has been crossed and try to avoid it in the future.

Thanks for your concerns and comments. As always, feel free to contact me at any time here or using my address below.

Best Regards-
Bradley
 
Awhile back a user had a question and so I replied with a polite answer. Well he got
downright nasty about the whole thing and I fired back " excuse me" Merrily quickly
jumped in and cleared things up and I appreciated very much. So the administrators
have to draw a line in the sand somewhere.

mike
 
Having been a (relatively) recent newcomer to the forum I have found it on the whole welcoming and with a lot of knowledgeable people who are more than willing to share their knowledge.

Every forum has their own resident 'idiot' who upsets the majority of the membership and either gets ridiculed and banned 9depending on the forum).

Sailing anarchy has the infamous Doug Lord who seems to either have a thicker skin than most or simply does not care what others think.

Yachst and Yachting (mainly uk people, I know there are a few here who also post there) has GRF. Back when he joined the forum he really did upset a lot of people, myself included. Now he has mellowed somewhat and is one of the more valuable contributors and dare I say it most liked!

Shatty and I had a disagreement over exercising and gym work. After a couple of days discussing I decided to opt out of the thread because I really did not want to get involved. He has his opinion I have mine. I know what works for me, he knows what works for him (just like sailing the Laser in fact).

Should he have been banned, I cannot comment I missed the 'offending' posts. Should he come back, almost definitely but if he contiues to abuse then he needs to be shown the door....

Before I get jumped on for calling people idiots I could not think of a better term for the kind of person who tries to ruin a forum by posting offensive material or trying to ram their own point of view down other peoples throats.

Just my 2p as always.....

Paul
 

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