I could be said that "coming of age" on the AC board is when posters give away their certs. It forms one of the building blocks of the boards society. Many first time posters begin by giving away their certs , and what better place (the same place it has always been)the AC board/community.

The direction FT and the AC forum has taken with the uber moderation lately, makes lose a great deal of interest in FT.

I have contributed many certs, bought a ticket for someone who was in dire straights, received the odd cert, given some good advice, received much advice, met some very interesting people, made some friendships. This has all taken place in our unmoderated AC forum, where we are perfectly capable of looking after ourselves, including chasing away skirtchasers et all.

Gleff and co, you have made a mistake. We all do, I try to limit mine to 10 a day, I admit to them, fix them and move on. Hopefully you can do the same. ^

At the risk of draging this thread OT, why is it this FTer gets to slur another member with a serious attack such as this:

Originally Posted by MapleLeaf
Parnel may have been a good contributor here on AC but on other forums he was rude, homophobic, racist and took the opportunity to slam anyone who didn't agree with him or his opinions. Now I don't know what was said this last time as he has been on my ignore list for quite some time, but given he was banned in a forum where anything goes, it must have been something.

Maybe FT should be set up where you can be banned from only specific forums and not others? Then again the weekend trolls will just jump from forum to forum causing problems.

while others have been banned for what have been arguably more minor infractions? If the rules are to be applied, they should be applied fairly. And don't misunderstand as I'm not pretending in any way shape or form I'm as pure as the driven slush here in YEG, but I've never directed such a direct personal attack on another poster's character as was done in this case. Deleting the offending passage and issuing a warning, if that was done, seems a light sentence given the gravity of the post.

But that's just my two cents and this board is ultimately RP's to run as he sees fit.

taupo:

Vigilante justice with chasing away skirtchasers, rdconsulting, and the like ... you think it's merely the AC forum "regulars" that helped get rid of the problem? You forget that the moderators can and do help. Please remember that we're just regular members too.

FewMiles..

The "Report Post" function (click the red/white triangle icon in the bottom left of the post in question) works well to alert the moderators (senior mods, in the case of forums without regular moderators). If you use this, you might just find the problem dealt with.

FewMiles..

I'm familiar with the feature. My question had more to do with how violations of TOS are handled rather than how to report them.

So the AC forum's "self moderation" is the preferred course of action unless someone does something that annoys you (or one of your friends)?

Can you have it both ways? :confused:

The quoted text from MapleLeaf was deleted and the thread was locked.

I understand that certain members campaign for the suspension of other members, but it's inappropriate to discuss such things publicly.

Moreover, I am not trying to be moderator of the Air Canada forum. On the one hand, folks vehemently argue against any moderation and then on the other complain that moderators haven't suspended a member for posting content.

I first stepped in when one member told another member to Shut the F Up. I also stepped in when there was some nasty discussion of a member who had been suspended - discussion of members and slamming of members has no place in the Air Canada or any other forum. The number of folks asking for a reaction to one of the posts in that thread supports that members are actually appreciative of occasional intervention. Then when a thread started to question the closing of threads, I moved it here.

I am 100% interested in helping members and protecting them from being attacked so that they can enjoy the forum. I am not looking to play any greater role than that.

Regards,
Gary

It is something of a shame this thread got into the banning debate, my concern was more with what I saw as unnecesary trivial moderation (the relatively small issue of the UG cert threads, and what I see as a refusal of the moderator to listen to the argument for not moving these to CC).

As an unmoderated forum I thought we were able to self-moderate ourselves over such small things, and I was surprised that senior moderators found it necessary or worth their time to intervene and meddle with such harmless things - and not to discuss this (I really did not think it merited wasting RP's time over). To me that made AC feel very like a fully moderated forum.

Until this thread got sidetracked I was thinking that it was nice how much agreement on the issue there was from people who often do not agree on the forum, and I am sorry it got onto an entirely different subject. My own personal sense would be that as an unmoderated forum there should only be a need for senior moderator intervention in serious cases of abuse etc, and not for small things like trying to give away certs etc. In this regard we moderate ourselves well I think (I know a moderator banned skirtchasers, but even here no-one was ever going to give them a cert and the opinion of the forum to that individual was made very clear quickly).

But why wasn't said member further disciplined?

What opportunity? To give (GIVE, not TRADE) our certs, lounge passes, etc. away to people we don't know? To say nothing of the fact that I am sure many, many of us don't skim around the other forums, so we in fact would miss the opportunity to take advantage of these generous offers, as many of us have done (both the giving and the receiving).

To me, and I'm sure may others, this is no different than the discussion of WS, SG, the Maple Leafs, etc. on the AC board. It's part of what defines us. Respectfully, I would ask that not be further spoiled.

Simon

Spoiled :confused:

All I am saying is that the way the rest of FT works is by using CC for all trades. If the AC forum likes to give them away, so be it.

Not trying to understand how AC forum works, as I rarely frequent it, I am close to south of the border, not north of the border ;)

So, I guess this case is closed, hope you all can understand why action was taken, and we will try to keep AC the happy forum it always has been :)

I think people are wondering why there was proactive moderation of a seeming harmless long standing practice (trading certs), but no action taken against something clearly against the TOS.

While there is near universal agreement that the AC forum does not want moderation (and wants to keep the cert trading in house), if we are having it forced upon us, we would like it to be as even as possible.

PS - This is my first post to a discussion such as this so please feel free to edit as required.

Actually, I tihnk some action was taken if you're referring to the quote I think you are. As mentioned earlier, it was edited out. A quote of the quote was edited out. The thread where it and other unpleasantries were was closed with a request that members not engage in such things.

As far as any other discussions with individual members and whether some folks here think that other folks deserve timeouts, those kinds of things are private between moderators and individual members so I will not comment on specific cases here.

Again, I think there was action taken.

But speaking only for myself, I don't read through every reply in the Air Canada forum. I am not applying to Randy to serve as moderator of that forum. So I'm not looking to police all of the threads there. So please don't assume that because action hasn't been taken in a thread or with a post that there's tacit acceptance that any particular post is 'okay'.

One member yesterday emailed me wanting to know why a particular comment was allowed to stand for a couple of hours. The truth is that I hadn't seen it yet. Then a member used the report-a-post function and that drew my attention.

When members have concerns they're welcome to use the report-a-post function, it's really quite useful. When there's a real "fire" that folks believe needs attention, that's the way to grab it. But there isn't oging to be a sleuth of proactive moderation in the forum to the extent that there isn't anyone assigned there full-time.

I hope that's not too unsatisfying of an answer.

Best,
Gary

Not unsatisfying at all. Thanks for taking the time to explain. ^

I think your post (and others from mods here) highlights why there was such a reaction from the AC forum. Since you, or none of the other mods are regulars on the forum, the appearance of actions to those of us who spend (too much) time on it is inconsistency. This is probably just a timing issue, and since it seems to work out in the end, perhaps the point is moot...

If there is going to be moderation of the AC forum, regardless of how much we fight against it, then let's just do it. At least then we will have someone who spends enough time there to understand and be connected to our little community and take action that we see to be consistent. And we can get back to talking about points and miles (and all else Canadian) in our little isolationist world.

That being said, I'm against the idea of moderation in the AC forum...and I'm definitely not volunteering. :D