Administrator

Hello everyone,

I want to take this opportunity to address some of the things that have been going on here in our community over the past little while.

Firstly, I want to apologize to everyone who has been disrupted, offended or inconvenienced by whatever it is that is going on in the community. It is certainly not my intention to offend anyone and I don't particularly enjoy dishing out warnings, closing threads or moving them out of public view.

Before I go further, I'm going to use a word to describe what I have been observing has been going on lately. That word is DRAMA. You may or may not agree with me on this and that's ok. We are allowed to have our difference in opinions.

From what I understand, a lot of the drama that has been taking place recently allegedly has it roots over ONE particular user who came here and tried to force her opinion on her way of doing things on the community at large and when that wasn't received well, things spiraled downhill from there. There was name calling. There was rude behavior.

Many people on both sides of this "disagreement" reported threads and posts and over the past week, things really exploded.

Here's the part where I come in.

Up to this point, this site has been moderated by myself and myself only. There hasn't been a need for extra moderators and heck, there aren't even rules (at least none that I can find visibly posted on the site). That's not a good thing or bad thing. It is what it is. Up until two weeks ago, the site didn't need it and I never received one question about it in private about there being a lack of moderating on the site. If there's anything I know about online communities, it's that they always evolve and as the Admin of the site, I need to be ready to handle and address how the community is evolving.

The current situation at hand is a good example of this and as such, I am working on putting together a moderating team who will help me establish rules or guidelines (or whatever term you want to use) so that everyone has something to go by and no one can accuse us of unfair treatment.

Which leads to my next point.

Some of you have called for me to do something about said user whom you perceive is the cause of all of this. I've received suggestions on how to handle this ranging from a quick rebuke to an outright ban.

I have NEVER made a habit of discussing publicly (or privately) about how I dish out warnings, penalties or removal of access to a user. Obviously, not all of you agree with my stance on this but no matter what you think of the person who is being punished, they deserve their privacy just as any of you would like to have it.

The only time I will talk about courses of actions I've taken with a particular user is if the user himself/herself has shared with other people and it gets posted publicly for everyone to see or they themself post it publicly for everyone to see. In these cases, I may chime in if asked a question directly about it. I will definitely chime in if it's not the truth.

The part that frustrates me about this is that many of you who wrote to me asking me to do something about it already had something in mind that you wanted done and when I didn't do exactly as you asked or wished, you got upset about (which is why you're seeing threads about how the Admin doesn't care about rude behavior or he's letting this and that go and therefore, we can all do as we please). That is called DRAMA. If you don't agree with that, I dare you to join any forum online outside of this community and do the same thing and see where it lands you.

Please know this. I'm all for open discussions, difference in opinions and heck, even the occasional heated debate because guess what... we're not all going to agree on the same thing. If you find that it gets your blood boiling because someone isn't subscribing to your way of doing things, walk away.

The part that I'm NOT ok with is when people create discussions that are solely for the purpose of causing drama. Many of you have written to me in private asking me to do something about all the drama because we don't need it on the site. I agree with that and that's why I'm closing threads or moving them out.

On that note, with regards to said user and what has been done, has anybody noticed that the user has been very silent this week despite many threads being created for the purpose of slinging mud at him/her directly/indirectly? This isn't a coincidence.

I think we all need to take a step back and just take a breath. It's so easy for us to get tunnel vision and not realize that we're doing more harm then good because we're so focused on getting what we want.

Anyhow, sorry for the long note and the bad grammar and for it not flowing well. Again, I'm not upset at anyone. I'm not out to get anyone. We're learning as this community evolves and we're getting more things in order.

Hopefully, I'll have a mod team in place by the end of the month and then we'll work on getting rules out to the community.

I am leaving this thread open for discussions but if it spirals downhill to name calling, accusations, and more drama, I will close it.

Kirska

I know that moderating is a difficult, unappreciated, and rather tiresome task. For what it's worth I have not seen anything happen in terms of your actions that I think was crossing the line in any way. Thanks for trying to keep up and sorry we are making your job more difficult than it needs to be.

__________________
Mom to Anabelle and Lila, rescued ladies and Harley, Corgi/Beagle/Basset/?? mutt

"Saving just one dog won't change the world, but it surely will change the world for that one dog." - Richard C. Call

Boomer's Mom

Dear Admin,

Thank you for this thread and for your clarifications. I hope now we can all get back on track about why we initially came here for; our bassets.

I apologize also for any part I had in the fiasco.

__________________
Boomer: Born 4/18/2010
Biscuit: Rescued 1/26/12, approx. 2 yo

Chez Basset: Come for the kibble, stay for the belly rubs.

Mikey T

One thing to keep in prespective is One incident of drama is pretty remarkable in over a year of existance under new ownership. any knee jerrk reaction to a signal episode is not really justified.


fwiw if the moderating team include poster to the site it is best they remain announimous, there is alway the perception whether warranted or not that the "power wnet to their head" when a moderator is someone from the community that is a frequent poster or that they can not be objective, they have thier favorites etc. In the history of this forum nothing has generate more accrimony than pucking or adding a new moderator. IMHO it is best that any such team consits of eployees of the ownership. Not to say this is not the case but in response to an addition tread in what I percieved as looking for moderator or volunteer to be moderator from inside the communitee this can be done but not on the heel of "drama" without make the problem worse

Soundtrack

I agree with Kirska (OMG!!!!!!)

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Rosie-Ch Soundtrack Cracklin' Rose CGN AGN RA Am RN TT
Melody-Ch Soundtrack Unchained Melody TT
Sailor-Ch Soundtrack Expedition Sailor RN TT
Chili-Ch Soundtrack Spice Up Your Life
Curry-Ch Soundtrack Canadian Brass
Pepper-Ch Pennieslogon Living La Vida Loca CGN
Vina-Ch Soundtrack Grand Illusion
Leila-Ch Soundtrack Almost Paradise
Deela-Ch Soundtrack Wink Of An Eye
Hermione - Soundtrack Spellbound
Eowyn - Soundtrack Rain Dance

Lightning&Stomps

Drama would be the right word, all right. And the best way to avoid drama is to not feed into it. I wish everyone would just chill. Thanks for your post.

Administrator

Thank you for all your kind words. I'm not looking for a pat on the back or any apologies in this. We've all played a role somehow some way in shaping this community to what it is now. I say let's put the past behind us and move forward to focus on the dogs and each other.

Administrator

Thanks for your suggestion on the moderating team. We usually like to have the moderating team consist of members from the community because they are most aware of what is going on. You do make a good point about impartiality though. This is why I'm not rushing into anything just yet.

Herzo

Thank you. We all need a chill pill.

Mikey T

it proably can work when done when everything is going smoothly but right after "drama" some are still looking to influence how things play out in the end and look for thing not saying a member of the community can not be impartial but to some extent that does not mean as much as the perception of impartiality and that you just can get from a member of a community follow a situation like this even though on a scale of thing it was very minor imho