Charter Policies vs. Common Sense

Boston

damalo wrote:

Although there was a "breach" of charter I think a simple sticky could have been set up to say "go here for more info yadda yadda". Someone commented that mods aren't here to do that...well they are. Imagine all the hassle that would have saved.

Alot of people have got on their high horse in this thread about charters and understanding same. The bottom line is that sh** hit the fan and boards users looked to this great site to get some assistance. People should understand there's people loosing cash from this event and are a little frustrated / desperate for information and to add to the pain 365 couldnt be reached.

That is all.

The charter is there for a reason, the particular rule actually protects hostings companies from unfounded absue. The discussionin question was allowed on other forums. This is not about the orginal topic, its about whether or not the user should be allowed to A) Ignore the rules of a forum and moan about said rules later.

Meep: You're requesting individual service. A mod to go an do for you what you're capable of doing for yourself. Theres hundreds of forums and thousands of posts a day, that type of service isn't practical.

meep

Boston wrote:

You where told and there is a note referencing the policy, its called the charter. The mod can't help if it you decide not to read the charter. Using any forum, oblivious of the rules surrounding that forum, is at the users own risk. If you won't do the smallest amounth to help yourself, why should the moderator take time out to deal with you individually? Their not paid like.

Point taken. Though I should have said 'a note referencing the policy in the statement advising why the thread had been locked'.

This would have the further advantage of enlightening other users like me stupid enough to use a forum without reading the rules. It's likely that users would remember a specific policy more when they see it in action rather than as one of many many rules in one of many many charters from one of the many many many internet forums to which they belong.

(obviously luas.ie is not back up yet :-( )

damalo

damalo wrote:

Alot of people have got on their high horse in this thread about charters and understanding same.

Go increase your post count on some other thread (Boston)

Boston

meep wrote:

That's funny!

Anyway, you've hit on my hobby horse and I fundamentally disagree with you. We should all demand STRONGLY better customer service in this country from all service providers. We are crap at it everywhere. I've just started working with a startup company where we have principals natively experienced in business in Canada, US, Spain, Croatia and Australia as well as having extensive experience in a variety ofm other countires. With the exception of Spain (:-)), they have ALL said that levels of customer service here are the worst they have encountered. Delays in service provision. Failure of large organisations to have any semblance of a customer charter or customer care policies. It's embarrassing. Topic for another day!

You get what you pay for tbh. Actually substancially more. Look at the amounth of feedback your query has received.

The Hill Billy

meep wrote:

That's exactly the issue here. In an exceptional circumstance, perhaps rules could be relaxed.

As you've got nowt to do this afternoon apart from surfing the Luas.ie site, why not do something more constructive such as define a set of "exceptional circumstances" for which the rules of each fora's charter may be suspended.

I'd suggest starting with the exception circumstances which would override the "no free speech" rule. That will help the mods a lot.






Still no cat pics?

seamus

meep wrote:

Secondly, I agree that this is a good rule. I'm just saying that in some exceptional circumstances, some rules should be flexible.

Most are though. There are only a handful that are "regardless of circumstances", and this happens to be one of them. I realise you bring this up because it affects you, but then, well tough to be honest.

There's also another immovable blanket ban on discussion of gigs promoted by a certain company. If a huge festival from this company was cancelled because of some spectacular catastrophe, the ban would still remain in effect. You may not consider that a huge deal, but someone else would. The rule would still remain in effect though, regardless.

Boston

meep wrote:

Point taken. Though I should have said 'a note referencing the policy in the statement advising why the thread had been locked'.

This would have the further advantage of enlightening other users like me stupid enough to use a forum without reading the rules. It's likely that users would remember a specific policy more when they see it in action rather than as one of many many rules in one of many many charters from one of the many many many internet forums to which they belong.

(obviously luas.ie is not back up yet :-( )

I'd go with monkey fudges approach about a sticky. Thats not saying the moderator did anything wrong, he was perfectly correct in his actions. Just that it would have saved alot of hassle.

monkeyfudge

Boston wrote:

You get what you pay for tbh. Actually substancially more. Look at the amounth of feedback your query has received.

And not a single cat pic... he should feel a bit short changed.

( . )( . )

Boston

Hill Billy wrote:

Still no cat pics?

User has come on here with a genuine query/complaint. Don't agree with the user buts he's conducted himself with manners and respect for the site and the owner and really deserves to be treated with the same respect in return. so yea no cat picture, rather we've all talked to the user like a person and I believe trashed out some form of understanding.

_feedback_

Hill Billy wrote:

As you've got nowt to do this afternoon apart from surfing the Luas.ie site, why not do something more constructive such as define a set of "exceptional circumstances" for which the rules of each fora's charter may be suspended.

I've a very similar thread in this forum, where I did explain in detail some exceptional circumstances to take in to consideration before a Mod making a decision. However, I've given up on there because it just resulted in the same rubbish as here.

The OP makes a very valid point , and monkeyfudge compliments it perfectly:

monkeyfudge wrote:

If RTÉ radio went off the air for the morning, should I not allow people mention this fact in the radio forum, and tell them they should take it up with RTÉ?

meep wrote:

I seem to on the losing side here :-(

Mate, you're making a valid point in the feedback forum. Of course you'll end up on the losing side :rolleyes:

meep

Hill Billy wrote:

As you've got nowt to do this afternoon apart from surfing the Luas.ie site, why not do something more constructive such as define a set of "exceptional circumstances" for which the rules of each fora's charter may be suspended.

I'd suggest starting with the exception circumstances which would override the "no free speech" rule. That will help the mods a lot.

And since luas.ie is STILL down, I do have a gap in my schedule....

Anyway, a prescriptive set of exceptions is nonsense as of course there will be circumstances not anticipated! That's why I argue for discretion.

Take this precise case. The particular charter item in this case is as follows;

If you have a problem with your host - deal directly with them.

That is a fine rule. It is well worded and looks good on screen. However, from the first post in the original thread and certainly after about half a dozen contributions, it was patently obvious that customers (or even non-customers like me) could not take it up directly with the hosting provider as ALL of their communications were down.

That is the exceptional circumstance in this case and the fact that I feel should have given rise to the ability of the mod to use discretion, not delete a useful thread without trace!

Boston

I see no rubbish in this thread. I see people pointing out how the user is wrong. You're mixing the issue here. If you disagree with a rule you don't just break it / ignore it. That what the user is basically seeking the ok to do. " I broke the rules, but it was a crap rule in the first place" doesn't cut it.

The Hill Billy

Boston wrote:

User has come on here with a genuine query/complaint. Don't agree with the user buts he's conducted himself with manners and respect for the site and the owner and really deserves to be treated with the same respect in return. so yea no cat picture, rather we've all talked to the user like a person and I believe trashed out some form of understanding.

Alright, we know how you feel about the cats pics.

You're right though that Meep has put his case forward in a decent, albeit mis-guided, manner.

Boston

meep wrote:

That is a fine rule. It is well worded and looks good on screen. However, from the first post in the original thread and certainly after about half a dozen contributions, it was patently obvious that customers (or even non-customers like me) could not take it up directly with the hosting provider as ALL of their communications were down.

That is the exceptional circumstance in this case and the fact that I feel should have given rise to the ability of the mod to use discretion, not delete a useful thread without trace!

Ah yes, but if you look at the reasoning behind the rule, its plain to see that this is not an exception to the rule. The topics are not desired on the forum due to past experience of topics being a lot of hassle. there's lots of ways this could have been handled, the locked sticky suggestion seems the best compromise, but a discussion of the topic on the forum was never going to be given the green light, and rightly so in my opinion.

All that said, users probably wouldn't have read the sticky, since most don't even check if a topic has come up recently or if it's posted elsewhere.

Cake Fiend

meep wrote:

We should all demand STRONGLY better customer service in this country from all service providers.

You're absolutely right, and I agree with you 100%. As soon as mods start getting paid a wage, you'll be well within your rights to tell them to do their jobs.

DeepBlue

elviscostello wrote:

The OP makes a very valid point , and monkeyfudge compliments it perfectly:

Mate, you're making a valid point in the feedback forum. Of course you'll end up on the losing side :rolleyes:

QFT.

This is a prime example of those feedback threads where a valid argument is made and the usual myopic suspects come along to nitpick and try to derail it with their kneejerk reactions :rolleyes: .

The OP has a valid point. There are occasions where the charter can be ignored for the greater benefit of the users. Nobody is asking for rules to be changed but simply for some flexibility to be exercised.

There are plenty of feedback threads where mods argue that the charter is a guideline and not some legal text.
Clearly the status page was something of interest to users of the Web forum and common sense would have dictated leaving it available to users of the forum.

Boston

This is probably one of the least derailed threads on feedback in along time. It would be nice if you left whatever personal agenda you have at the door. The charter isn't a legal document, but that doesn't mean its to be ignored. Its a guide for the users and not something that binds the moderators.

bonkey

elviscostello wrote:

The OP makes a very valid point , and monkeyfudge compliments it perfectly:

MF only compliments it fully in that he too seems to be missing teh point.

Yes, if RTE went off the air, you should be allowed mention it in the radio forum unless the radio forum's charter explicitly says not to post asking why your choice of radio station has gone off the air.

The basic complaint here seems to be that although the charter says "don't ask about your provider", the OP is of the opinion that their particular provider is large enough and important enough that this rule shouldn't apply to them.

Rather than suggest that the rule be changed to say "except for H365", they're calling it common sense or flexibility, wanting some ill-defined line to be allowed where some provider stuff should be allowed and some not.

The problem with such lines is that they are ill-defined. Once you allow some of the queries, how do you figure out when to say such-and-such a provider/outage/event/whatever just isn't important enough to be permitted, but this other one is.

The OP wants better customer service, but it seems to me that this hasn't been thought through.

If you allow all such comments, you return to the situation before this rule was put into effect. Given that this rule was put into effect to improve the quality of the forum it would be hard to see how one is improving customer-service to reduce quality by taking it back out.

If you allow some such comments, then you put the mod(s) in the position where they make a judgement call, and each and every judgement call is open to calls of bias. Again, not conducive to customer service.

Or you leave the rule as it is, and you point out that it is not a failing of customer service when a user cannot read and follow the rules of a specific charter. It is, in fact, the upholding of customer service levels which had the thread closed - the service being to the other customers rather than the ones transgressing the clearly-defined rules.

Reading through this thread, there seems to be two main lines of thought. Those demanding flexibility are employing eye-rolling smileys and other such typical tactics to show their displeasure because their wants aren't carrying the day (or haven't thus far at least). Now, imagine where tehy're the ones who feel their topic is important enough to merit flexibility byt the mod disagrees...or they feel the mod is too lax and too flexible. What do you get? More eye-rolling and such.

It would be nice if we lived in a world where you could keep all people happy all the time, but some ill-defined notion which is little more than "the mod should allow stuff that I think is important enough to break / set aside the rules for" isn't it.

Borzoi

Boston wrote:

I see no rubbish in this thread. I see people pointing out how the user is wrong.

The user isn't wrong, his initial actions were (Presuamably from frustration). However that isn't the point of his thread. The initial post refers to Charters, and where Mods might make exceptions - common sense ones. In fact you seem to be in agreement with the OP:

Boston wrote:

The charter isn't a legal document, but that doesn't mean its to be ignored. Its a guide for the users and not something that binds the moderators.

seamus

DeepBlue wrote:

This is a prime example of those feedback threads where a valid argument is made and the usual myopic suspects come along to nitpick and try to derail it with their kneejerk reactions :rolleyes:

Whatever your hidden agenda, this statement is just completely wrong (and hilariously ironic). The OP has been listened to and has responded in a reasonable manner.

DeepBlue

Boston wrote:

This is probably one of the least derailed threads on feedback in along time.

followed immediately by........

Boston wrote:

It would be nice if you left whatever personal agenda you have at the door.

Oh the irony :rolleyes: .

Boston

The user wasn't wrong except at the start? hmm, yea so the user was wrong. I agree 100% with bonkeys take on it. The problem with common sense is that everyone has a different take on what is common sense. Common sense is that, if certain topics are causing a lot of hassle and degrading user experience they should be banned. Common sense also dictates that the ban should be applied fairly across the board without exception. Otherwise more hassle will result. Now there is flexibility in the charter, the user wasn't banned, one thread was deleted the other locked, a sticky would have been in keeping with the charter as well. It's up to the moderator to decide his or her actions. The moderator has flexibility with regards to charters, the users don't.

DeepBlue

seamus wrote:

Whatever your hidden agenda, this statement is just completely wrong (and hilariously ironic). The OP has been listened to and has responded in a reasonable manner.

Hidden agenda? Wtf? How is that not kneejerk?

Several contributors have either missed the OP's point or wilfully mis-interpreted it.

Boston

Well explain his point to me. I think he outlined it pretty clearly, but please enlighten me.

_feedback_

Boston wrote:

Well explain his point to me. I think he outlined it pretty clearly, but please enlighten me.

Charter Policies vs. Common Sense

similar to this:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055103852

Boston

elviscostello wrote:

similar to this:

Only in your mind. Anyway thats not what I asked for. Don't derail this thread with your agenda.

_feedback_

Boston wrote:

Only in your mind. Anyway thats not what I asked for. Don't derail this thread with your agenda.

You asked what his point was. It was Charter Policies vs. Common Sense . Which is similar to the thread I linked to... entitled 'Forum Charter'. vs. Common Sense could be included in that title too.

meep

bonkey wrote:

The basic complaint here seems to be that although the charter says "don't ask about your provider", the OP is of the opinion that their particular provider is large enough and important enough that this rule shouldn't apply to them.

Rather than suggest that the rule be changed to say "except for H365", they're calling it common sense or flexibility, wanting some ill-defined line to be allowed where some provider stuff should be allowed and some not.

That's not, in fact, the point.

First, H364.5 is NOT my service provider (though they do provide service for some of my clients and some websites I wish to use today).

Secondly, the charter does not say "don't ask about your provider", it actually says "This is not a hosting support/bashing forum. If you have a problem with your host - deal directly with them. "

That being the case, and the fact that no-one could deal directly with the provider as instructed IN THIS CASE due to the outage, my point is that flexibility could be allowed. That's all.

Actually, now that I read that in context, I sit looks like it's written to prevent people bashing hosting providers. Applying it to todays case where people are simply seeking information seems a little strong!

Anyway, thanks for setting me straight everyone. It's great to see such respect for rules. It's a pity we can't extend such fervor to society in general!

I look forward to discussing my hosting and concert proclivities elsewhere in future and sticking with boards.ie for everything else.

(by the way bonkey, I have not used rolley eyes and am nothing but sincere in my posts here. I just find it odd that a place where I would turn for information on a major issue affecting a lot of people (not only customers of a specific hosting provider)) does not allow access to that information. Obviously because people can't have a rational debate that stays on topic as illustrated here.

bonkey

meep wrote:

Actually, now that I read that in context, I sit looks like it's written to prevent people bashing hosting providers. Applying it to todays case where people are simply seeking information seems a little strong!

Don't get me wrong...I'm not unsympathetic to your complaint.

My point is that your plea for flexibility, backed up as it was by a suggestion that it would lead to superior customer service by boards, is flawed.

It might have given you, for this one instance, superior customer service. It would not, in my opinion, lead to an overal improvement in what you consider customer service in the long run.

Exceptions - and I'm speaking from experience - are simply more trouble for the moderators than they're worth. As soon as you make them, you open yourself up to a literally-never-ending stream of "but you made an exception in that case" complaints, accompanied by an increase in people deciding that the rules can/should be bent/set aside/ignored for them because they feel their case merits it.

If the situation merited that rule being put in place at some point, then there's a good chance that its because the lac of that rule was causing problems - as has already been stated to be the case. Bearing this in mind, I can understand the mods relectance to decide to let something slide.

As a suggestion, however, should you find yourself in a similar position in the future, you could try the following. Bear in mind I'm not suggesting that you'll have any success with it, but...

As soon as you've put up your post which is (potentially) breaking the rules, use the Report This Post button and report your own post to the moderators. In the comment you can add, acknowledge that you realise you're breaking the rules and offer your reasons why you think it may be worth letting the rules be bent.

In otherwords, if you're proactive about acknowleding what you've done wrong, the mod may take it on board.

(by the way bonkey, I have not used rolley eyes and am nothing but sincere in my posts here.

I never suggested that you did. I think you raised a valid point and - as Boston has mentioned - its refreshing to see a thread remain (relatively) constructive and civil for a change.

That comment was more aimed at the likes of elviscostello who was expressing an opinion that posting on Feedback is a waste of time if you expect to get anywhere. The irony being, of course, that such comments are part of the machine that elviscostello would rage against, rather than part of a solution.

just find it odd that a place where I would turn for information on a major issue affecting a lot of people (not only customers of a specific hosting provider)) does not allow access to that information.

As the mod previously cleared up, the rule was put in place because the amount of "noise" generated by such threads was drowning out the "signal" the forum was intended for.

There is rarely a happy middle-ground to be found in such cases. There's always some amount of signal lost when you clamp down on the noise.

Obviously because people can't have a rational debate that stays on topic as illustrated here.

I disagree that its "obviously" any such thing. I'd also be wary of any assumption that trends span across fora.