Amen!

And snout: please get some sleep. You are very right in what you write: this will damage your health.... However, I do feel that your post was again necessary. Ah well, we discussed this in Bussum...

So, indeed: let's talk about MSX again!

Some ideas for guidelines for using a forum like MRC:
- if someone writes something that upsets you for some reason
1) don't react immediately
2) try to see if the poster didn't mean it as negative as you thought at first sight (this is most of the time the case). Assume that the poster meant no harm and actually just meant good.
3) see who it posted and adjust your judgement of the post to it (different people have different ways to say things)
4) try to react in a more polite way than the original poster. This way things might converge to a solution instead of a flame war
- always try to be polite and humble
- respect each other's opinion; don't judge people or even 'convict' them
- never use swearing (unless it's very clearly a joke)
- try not to offend people unnecessarily
- this is written media: take care what you write and try to be as clear as possible, it's easy to get misunderstood (using smileys may help)
- and again: don't think everyone is against you or whatever, but assume everyone here (visitors, posters, moderators) is trying to do the best he can for MSX and the community. You know, it's probably even true!

All these ideas do not harm freedom of speech or heated discussion at all... But they might keep things more friendly sometimes!

Again, I'm not a saint and I don't pretend to know everything or to be better. I'm just trying to give some ideas to prevent ugliness we have seen here, apart from the many useful and great MSX discussions. All I want is that we can start talking about MSX again. (If you used the above ideas I wouldn't even have to say this.)

5) don't post anything when you'r drunk
(at least that's my negative experience)

Well, for someone who was completely drunk and just came back from a bit disappointing Franz Ferdinand gig (Heineken Music Hall suxxx), this is damned well said!

Wow, completely drunk? Impressive

Answers of Snout are always interesting ... but I'm still more and more deceived by his answers. Why? Because he doesn't answer really to my questions or suggestions. It's common attitude in the politic world, but it's very strange to see that in the MSX community.

I don't have contested the MRC policies, we know them and the reasons of their existence. The problem is elsewhere and Manuel has well perceived the problem : guiding lines are necessary for the moderators to apply correctly these policies in a serene and polite atmosphere.

Personnally, I was also confronted by the MRC practices, when they edit some posts. Even if the deleted words had a too ironic style and could be considered as too aggressive, their deletion was not a solution to the concerned discussion. The best proof of that is the fact that the solution was found between the 2 concerned guys (it was GuyveR800 and me about the alternative version of Seleniak) on a MSX mailing list after some answers, explanations, .... WITHOUT the intervention of a moderator.

So, the real problem on MRC is the excessive intervention of the moderators and the fact that some of them don't accept any critics.
In best cases, they don't answer (even suggestions to change positively the situation are neglected - I'm still waiting for an answer to my suggestions that I've sent personnally to Snout after the long discussion with GuyveR800 on a MSX mailing list); in worst cases, you are banished.

On delicate matters, a real human communication on MRC is impossible because their strict policies are actually unpredictible (more exactly : their application is unpredictible)

What gives you the impression I'm trying to deceive you, mars200you? What gives you the impression that real human communication is impossible on the MRC? We are having real human conversations all the time over here. Are you actually reading our forums?

The MRC policies aren't strict and unpredictable. The only guidelines we follow are our personal feelings on what can be considered to be a 'heated discussion' and 'pure flaming'. Where we feel discussion ends and and flaming begins, we moderate. We do indeed draw a line and some people think we are a bit too strict, others think we should moderate a lot more. No matter how strict or loose you are going to get, that will always be the case. The moderator alert function helps us, making us feel we are doing the right thing. As moderating is not a particularly fun thing to do we try to moderate as little as possible.

I'm not saying we are always doing the exact right thing (how can you possibly expect such perfection from the MRC?), I'm just expressing that we are trying to keep our forums about MSX, not about warez and fights, as hard as we can. If you don't like that, MRC is not the site for you. If you often respond to people being wrong or disagreeing with you by flaming, MRC is not the site for you. If the only way of expressing your feelings on what you think is a 'mistake' of the MRC team or one of their members is flaming or putting pressure on MRC by other means, MRC is not the site for you. If MRC is not the site for you, I don't see any point in fighting a 'holy war against MRC'. Just don't visit the site, or only visit the parts you do like. That's all there is to it.

There is no excessive intervention of the moderators on the MRC. You are insinuating that we are moderating hundreds of posts on a daily basis. In fact, we only mod one or two posts a month at most, mostly about warez. Please stop blowing things up way out of proportion. Thanks.

As we are humans, we are not perfect, that's an evidence.

But some little things could already limit the chance to misunderstandings and bad answers.

Do you think really that the first thing that a newbie does is read the policies ?
I don't think so.

So, you must indeed react about asking for warez or worse, linking to warez (I take this example because there's really more easy to trace the line between what is acceptable and what it's not acceptable than for the flames).

To avoid this situation, there's a simple solution : a permanent banner above the forums with the message "This forum doesn't accept links to warez". So, that is clear for everone, even for a newbie.

The same can be applied for the flames. So, the above mesage should be completed and become "This forum doesn't accept links to warez or discussions that degenerate into flames; be positive and speak about MSX in a serene atmosphere !"

I don't say that it is enough to avoid misunderstandings about flames, but it should be a first step in the good direction (or a second step as you have already the moderator alert as tool to try to determine when the frontier of personal respect is transgressed) ; guiding lines are also necessary for the moderators to avoid subjective application of these policies.

Well, I try to help you .... but it should be also useful to have private forums for discussions between the admins, the mods and the people that want to help you. You have of course already private forums for admins and mods, but it is not enough and some ideas could be better understood and explained if they could be discussed in a private forum.

As I have learnt by discussing with GuyveR800 , many problems are misunderstandings, because what you explain is not always correctly understood, but (partially) incorrectly interpreted. For example, "excessive" has probably not the same meaning for me and for you .... you speak about quantity of interventions, I speak more about quality of intervention, that's really different !

Many problems are misunderstandings indeed. But that doesn't justify the start of a non-productive flaming session. There's nothing that justifies that, for starters since it doesn't solve any problem. The only way to solve a problem that rised due to a misunderstanding, is talking about it. What do you mean, what do I mean, that kind of things. Not 'you stupid fart, read my words better' or 'you are a this or that' for instance.

But then again, misunderstandings have always occurred and will always occur. Everyone has his or her own approach to certain cases, his or her own opinion and way of thinking about things. The best way to avoid as many problems as possible, is to set guidelines about what is reasonable. Being a subjective term, discussions may rise about what is reasonable. Moderators, admins and webmasters may learn from these discussions. But ofcourse there are also discussions that do not influence their way of thinking about things. I guess both effects need to be respected.

Respect is the key in every social relation, at work, in a marriage and in a web forum... try you posters and moderators to keep repect with each other. Yes, is that simple!. Everyone is with the MSX system, so take this as the starting point and keep working together.

As you may have seen, a big part of the suggestions for posting guide lines are targeted at avoiding misunderstandings. So: I think you are right that this is the biggest problem. And indeed: talking about them in a polite way is the only way to solve it.

About moderation (IMHO): Don't remove whole posts, unless the post is completey unacceptable. Try to remove as little as possible.
I.e.: don't remove attempts to clear things up, always remove flaming ("you stupid fart". Always give a reason for the removal of the post or parts of it and suggest how it could have been avoided (e.g. point to one of the guide lines I propsed ("Try to express yourself more politely please!").

However, most of this is probably already done. But I thought it wouldn't hurt to post this anyway.

I personally think it's absurd that we have to spell things out this explicitely on a website about a cool hobby we all share (MSX), on a website where mature people can exchange opinions. The only thing you have to do is use your common sense. The policies as they are stated right here should really do the trick, imho.

Of course we have discussed guidelines on when to moderate and when not to moderate internally. Of course, as MRC is an evolving website, things might change every now and then. If a moderator is not sure whether or not (or how) something should be moderated, we have a short internal discussion about it. Moderator alerts do certainly help and you all might have noticed that since they were introduced the atmosphere on the MRC forums have been great 99,99% of the time (and before that time the atmosphere was great most of the time as well). When moderating we do try to keep the discussions, posts and opinions intact, only removing the flamez'n'warez. But when a complete topic is one hundred percent flame, it leaves us no choice but to remove it in order to let people cool down again. Some people seem to make a sport out of it to see how far they can go on the MRC, yet the same people tend to overreact when we let them know they are out of line.

As I said several times before: Every MRC team member is doing the very best he can. We try to get better every day, and looking at how MRC has evolved throughout the years we have come a long way in many aspects, but there is no point in expecting absolute perfection from the MRC. We are not professional, we are not perfect. The fact that some people see us as professionals or expect absolute perfection from us can be seen as a big compliment, but it certainly has its downsides.

We are -always- open to suggestions and interested in your opinions, but there is no point in trying to force your will on the MRC. It's quite absurd that some people expect we have the spare time to implement certain suggestions practically instantly. Unfortunately it's also impossible to please everybody. Viejo_arichivero said some very true words here: Respect is the key in every social relation. All you have to do to not-be-modded on the MRC is respect the other people on the MRC. And that does include the MRC team itself ^_^.

The only suggestion, and urgent advice, I have is to sort all this stuff out in private. (ofcourse all parties must be open to sort it out in private)

The only thing you get when situations like this are made public is polarisation of the surrounding crowd.. .. should they 'choose' someone or some party, even if they're not interested in personal issues?

To make it even more concrete, should #msxdev visitors (guyver's channel) choose someone? Even more complex, most of the MRC crew are/were #msxdev regulars as well.

It's all very confusing this way, for the involved parties, but also for the rest of the ppz, which is why for example *I* prefer to stay out of this case, not in the least because I can generally get along with the current 2 opposite parties .. and I wish to keep it like that.

Every time MRC makes a poll, someone is complaining about the poll system. Therefore I suggest, that next poll should be about how people should vote in MRC polls. :9

NYYRIKKI, do you mean a poll like this one?

In an MRC poll people should vote:
A. for the alternative the MRC staff probably like the most
B. for the alternative the MRC staff probably like the least
C. according to their own opinion
D. not at all
E. for the last alternative

I'll suggest a poll, based on where this thread ended in 2004:

can we get Odyssey back?