The True Crime Weblog Message Board

It's under "A Scenario that reconciles all (hitherto) known facts.

A message to FBN: I had not seen it when I quoted Philip Larkin in my pm to you! Strange coincidence (They f*ck you up, your mum and dad).

Sax and violins! Too bad we won't be able to put parents on trial here too.

Skep:

To reply to your PM’s which I picked up only yesterday.

A. I posted not one, but two, brief replies to the PM you had sent me. The reason I posted two was to correct something I had said in the first, without wishing to use the edit button (which I always find a bit dishonest, as it means that what one has corrected is no longer on record; though it is very useful for correcting embarrasssing typos; I bet AK and RS wish they had edit buttons on their verbali!)

The fact that I replied in a second post to my first post means that at least one appeared on the forum. I am quite happy to accept that in posting the second, I may have screwed things up and deleted the first in an unfamiliar environment.

I do not have copies of them: I am not that anal. The tenor was that in posting to me what you did in a personal message, you had breached the limits of a moderator. Why should you choose, spontaneously and voluntarily, to give information to me that you were not prepared to share with board as a whole? That goes against everything that a moderator ought to do. I did not put it so so strongly in the postings. What I repeated is that Iwas not prepared to receive or reply to PM’s.

When I found those posts were missing, I was very angry indeed. I assumed that you only were in a position to remove them. I then posted verbatim the PM that you had sent to me. It was not out of order for me to have done so: it was out of order for you to have sent it as a PM in the first place; and I would not have done so if my postings had not disappeared.

Shall we bury the hatchet?

I seems to me that the great disadvantages of this board are three:

1. That the PM function will encourage the formation of cliques (as evidenced by your PM to me which you were not prepared to share with others).

2. That it is impossible to search for what is contained in individual posts.

3. That it has not entirely eliminated trolls. The only way to deal with trolls is to ignore them. I.E. not to reply to them. It seems that few have the self-discipline to do that.

I prefer the anarchy of the Haloscan format.

And I post this publicly. I will never use the PM function: I might be tempted to do so when hoping for a reply to a specific question I had addressed to another poster (e.g. my questions to Nicki about an hour ago).

If I receive any further PMs I will reply to them on the public forum, quoting them!

Minotaur,
I am relieved to bury the hatchet and am sorry for the misunderstanding. I will take to heart your view that in sending you the pm I was over-stepping my bounds. My only concern was about compromising my source, and the issue (the identity of C Mellas) is one that you in particular are interested in. As well you should be. I will state publicly that your attitude toward that poster was justified, and I appreciated your mischievous use of his handle to make your point, even if I was slow to get it.

Below, here are my thoughts on the disadvantages of the board that you mention (your comments in bold):


It seems to me that the great disadvantages of this board are three:

1. That the PM function will encourage the formation of cliques (as evidenced by your PM to me which you were not prepared to share with others).
I agree that this is a danger. In my own case, all of the pms I have sent or received have been totally off-topic (except the one to you, alas) or, in the latter case, have been complaints about the content or tone of a post. As the moderator of this message board, my job (if you can call it that) is to deal with those complaints and it probably is better to do it that way rather than get everyone going on a side issue. For the record, there have been very few complaints--one, to be exact.
As for the off-topic ones, for example I enjoy exchanging in French with Bluetit on topics of the day in France, and I think she does too. This would bore the hell out of most people on the board and has no relevance. I think exchanging pms is okay in this case, although we have actually moved on to emails. If other people want to do it, and I'm sure they are doing it, I have no control over it. All I really care about is keeping this board as free of nasty sniping from imposters as possible. And if friendships develop between people with similar interests, I think that's okay too. As long as they don't use their bond to gang up on others here.


2. That it is impossible to search for what is contained in individual posts.
Yes, I saw your post on this subject and tried to do it. Maybe Michael can help. He knows the ropes better than I do. You can search for a word on the page you happen to be on, but not on the board as a whole.

3. That it has not entirely eliminated trolls. The only way to deal with trolls is to ignore them. I.E. not to reply to them. It seems that few have the self-discipline to do that.
Again, this is true. It is best to ignore them. I am among those who don't always have the self-discipline to take my own advice. Mea culpa. As moderator, I could banish them, but that very idea bothers me. I also think it just feeds the persecution complex that drives some people to trolldom. I'll try and follow my advice (summarized in the longer post from this morning), and I hope others will too.

I prefer the anarchy of the Haloscan format.

I do too, and also its immediacy. I think the two are related, in fact. I guess we have to stay put for awhile, but maybe one day we can pack up and move back to Haloscan.

Thanks for taking the time to work through this incident. Let's hope our exchange will serve a larger purpose.
Skep

"If I receive any further PMs I will reply to them on the public forum, quoting them!"
-Minotaur

So everyone is forewarned!

I would just add that for Steve Huff, posting someone's pm without their express permission is just not done. But since Minotaur has made this rule explicit, it seems fair enough to me!

[font=Times New Roman]Hello Skep and all,

A few thoughts.
Although I've only been able to lurk a bit in the last few days, I see there have been many things going on - from trolls to news to confusion - and subjects found in surprising places on the MB. Maybe understanding this is just in the learning curve.

However, it's been a bit difficult to follow WHERE to read, and how find the subject that seems to have evolved under a specific topic. For example: this topic has to do with the post of Minotaur, though the subject is now about how and when to use PMs. I wonder is there a way to consolidate topics, archive or store posts that have been dealt with - or are now unimportant except for reference? I also see that both the 'continue discussion here' and 'begin discussion here' are ongoing. If some thread is to be continued elsewhere, can we say in large letters...see blah blah blah?

I agree, the old Haloscan anarchy had some advantages. Here, checking in and out as I often am limited to doing, I am having difficulty in establishing a hierarchy of topics...either by most recent (those little waving tiny tiny white cross marks are a bit teeny) posts, or by being able to see clearly where a topic is going.

Is there a way to clean house without tossing things? And, can we line up the topics by most visited, or most activity at the top? I assume that announcements will be temporary, and be saved somewhere else. Or, is it possible to have an announcement that has NO comments, thus making our discussions less fragmented? The comments would then only take place under the 'announced' topic, event or thread.

Also having an entire topic for a single question seems to make for wasted space. And, I guess I'd not be prepared to have all PMs quoted in entirety. After all, what is a PM for? I'd like to hear what Michael has to say on this topic. One advantage of PM's is cutting down on unnecessary off-topic questions.

Well, I probably should have posted this under 'technical difficulties', but then, maybe not.

thanks,
May[/font]

[font=Comic Sans MS]For the purpose of keeping the board simple and tidy I am now locking this thread. Should anyone feel they need to continue to discuss this topic, please do so in the 'A scenario that reconciles all the (hitherto) known facts...' thread:

http://truecrimeweblog.freeforums.org/a ... s-t26.html

If you feel it essential this topic be unlocked, please contact a Moderator via PM.

Michael (Moderator)

PS: May...I shall be posting regarding the matter you have raised in your post. This I shall do elsewhere.[/font]