Notice: Regarding Personal Attacks and Harassment
 

Personal attacks and harassment will not be tolerated in this forum. Any such content and any further discussion of it or my actions regarding it will be deleted immediately, no questions asked. Please feel free to private message me regarding any disagreements you may have with me. Finally, I would request that any personal attacks in this forum please be brought to my attention via the "Report Post" function.

Thanks in advance for your cooperation,
Kevin

Are you really sure you wanna go there?

You'd be surprised how few posts get reported here.

People just prefer to call each other names.

That's why we pay him the big bucks.

I realize you prefer to be PMed, but I think what I have to say is best stated out in the open.

As moderator you can do what you like- and I support the idea of keeping a civil forum.

But in practice, you allowed the SAE/SMU thread to continue- full of nasty attacks and the like (and you obviously saw it because you posted again in the thread yourself), but then only locked the thread when I made what I thought was an aggressive, but appropriate post, questioning the ongoing behavior of some of those on that thread who had no excuse for what they were saying.

Do as you please, but don't expect people to respect policies that are self-serving in the false veil of setting the proper tone.

This is not a forum to discuss Risk Management- it is a voyeristic place for people to preach when the opportunity of a tragedy presents itself.

If that is what you want, fine since you are the moderator.

But don't expect reasonable people who have respect for the dead or accused to just take it lying down.

You are lucky in this case that the retaliation was just a few posts with unkind language.

If it had been one of my guys, I would have been calling some IHQs to see what your organizations think about their members functioning as leaders of a major internet forum and publicly crapping all over college kids who have lost friends- or at least permitting it to happen.

This will surely get deleted, but so be it.

A shame really. I posted a few weeks ago about an Excel spreadsheet I developed to manage chapter budgets. Via PM I have received several requests for it and have hopefully helped a lot of people- some of whom have helped me with advice on other fraternal matters.

There is a whole subculture here of people actually helping each other out- and it is a shame that the public tone of the boards can so often crowd that out.

I've actually trimmed numerous personal attacks out of those threads. Over the break, I let it slide a bit. It got to the point where people weren't even discussing the subject matter of the thread. I locked it instead of trimming it yet again. I don't even remember your post to be honest. It certainly wasn't the straw that broke the camel's back. Your posts aren't that brilliant and cutting.

I disagree with your charge regarding voyeurism. It's true that some on here could without doubt be characterized as judgmental. You seem to be of the mind that being judgmental is a bad thing. I have news for you -- insurance companies are pretty judgmental. Leaders of our respective HQs are judgmental when they close a chapter due to risk management violations. Discussion regarding these matters -- sometimes reaching the conclusion that 'someone done wrong' is hardly voyeuristic. Judgmental? Sure.

-- but there's nothing inherently wrong about being judgmental.

Generally, I don't feel like I have to explain anything I do regarding managing this forum. Your post was respectful (but needlessly threatening) and well written. If you don't like the way I run things, feel free to PM me. If you don't want to that, PM John. Threatening to call IHQs is just silly, not even worth a response.

Kevin, I appreciate that insurance companies and IHQs take a hard line- and there is nothing wrong with people coming here or anywhere else and posting with that reality in mind. (It is not my place to say right or wrong, but I am just wanting to clarify what I am complaining about.)

But to discuss such things and expect civil discourse I think all parties, especially we who are graduated and have some age and experience, have to carefully read and consider what they can about an incident before making comments that go beyond good, if hard to swallow, advice and instead get into discussions that degenerate like that SMU thread.

You couldn't pay me to moderate this forum- or any other for that matter. I can only imagine the amount of time required and the hassles involved. I am merely pointing out that when an unfortunate death of a young man who made some unfortunate choices is used to as an opportunity to criticize an existing Greek stereotype- then it is to be expected that anyone with any association to the incident is going to react strongly.

The "calls to IHQ" threat was not intended to stifle discourse or threaten you personally. It is certainly a drastic resort.

But I am fiercely protective of my chapter as an advisor, and in an extreme case like this one involving a death that is discussed in a forum like this in such a manner that casts improper aspersions on the chapter or entire fraternity as a whole- you better believe I would do it. And so would many others. Many of our IHQs watch this site, and this forum in particular draws a great deal of attention.

The timing of the locking of the thread- I cannot know for sure. But in the heat of battle I made an assumption that the timing of events supported. Given what I have seen on this site in recent weeks, it would be hard for me to conclude otherwise.

I have no ownership or management stake in this site. I am not going to complain to anyone. All I am going to do is decide whether it is worth my time coming here. The fun chat is good here and there, but I have a life and if this is not going to be a site that is beneficial to use, I will just leave. This is a free site and it does not belong to me, so staying or going seems the only productive choice.

Some may think I am overreacting, but if you saw and heard what is going around here lately- and the reputation this site is developing- you might not think me so crazy.

Anyhow- I have said my peace and thank you for letting me say it. I will say no more on the matter unless asked.

I am very responsive to PMs. To this date, regarding that particular thread, I have several in my box. Each was addressed either by doing exactly what the individual asked or going beyond what they asked. I'm very sensitive to what was going on there.

I don't think it's my place to stop people from being judgmental or lecturing when they shouldn't. I do think it's my place to stop the very crass and in many cases needlessly uncouth responses. I'll delete those types of posts every time I see them.

I honestly don't try to play favorites, I just call 'em as I see 'em. As I said before, that thread is locked because it is so far off topic as to be irretrievable. I'm letting this one continue so as to possibly better clarify (for my own benefit) what my role should be here. Thanks to all for your constructive responses. I'll try to do a better job, but please realize that I can't make everyone happy all of the time.

Hey Kevin,

You're doing a good job. This can be a difficult forum to moderate. Keep up the good work.

Well I applaud you for being a stand up guy.

Absolutely, considering it benefits you and not others.

I'm not sure what you mean by that, but my comment is based on having been the Risk Management moderator for some time and understanding that no matter what you do or what decision you make it's going to tick someone off.

Kevin, no matter what someone posts, there will be an adverse post by someone else.:rolleyes:

You post only for the betterment as some do not seem to understand it seems.

We all will never agree or disagree but that is the nature of the beast of the internet isn't it?

You have and are doing a very commendable job, just keep it up.:)

You, I, and others are trying to do the best available job, but there will be some who do not give a damn and will post just to start crap.

Just be you and keep up the good work!:D

So if we are supposed to report people who are out of line, how do we go about reporting Moderators? I've seen moderators say much worse things then any member. Why don't we kick them off? Wouldn't that be fair and non-hypocritical?

No kind of reporting in this forum will do anything to ban anyone. That's not within the power of any moderator. My sole remedy here is to delete the offending posts/threads.

As for being "fair," without the benefit of being able to see which posts I've deleted, I've deleted a lot of posts made by moderators.

Banning and demodding is fairly serious stuff. Well above my pay grade.