New forum: The Rubber Room

[kaitlinnegan]

HI all,

In response to continuing member complaints about posts in the Community section of Sew What's Up ("Take a break," "Home and Hearth," etc.), I have decided to add a forum called "The Rubber Room" for posts that are deemed inflammatory, inappropriate, or offensive by other members. Threads will be permanently locked and moved to the Rubber Room when several members press the "Report this post" button - the small triangular button with an exclamation point in it, at the upper right of every post.

As usual, posts that are obviously offensive will be deleted.

In order to avoid having your posts moved to the Rubber Room or deleted, please refer to the rules here: Rules for posting

I hope this will help in keeping Sew What's Up a friendly, welcoming place for all who love sewing.

~Kaitlin

[fabric_addict]

I was wondering if it would just be better to lock problem threads and then let them die/disappear as they slowly go off of the new posts lists because no one can add to them. If offensive/questionable threads are placed in a separate forum, the questionable/offensive material will be available constantly and will be more easily accessible... I know my curiosity would cause me to particularly look at threads deemed offensive, even if I hadn't at first been enticed by the title of the thread ...thus if others are like me, a separate constantly available topic area would increase the views of offensive material rather than decrease them. If they just fade away, one would need to find them by searching or scrolling through the forums...which is more difficult than just clicking on "view new posts".

Other than that, the idea is fine with me...it does have the upside of making public those who were involved with the transgression, which might result in enough public embarrassment and have the effect of reducing their likelihood to offend in the future? On that same note...I'm also wondering, if it's not already there, if it might be possible that the reporting of problem posts also included a way for the one reporting the problem to indicate why the post is an issue...this way the person who wrote the post can know what he/she did wrong and avoid that in the future.

[kaitlinnegan]

When you click the "Report this post" button, there is a field for entering why you found this post offensive. If someone wants to know why their post was moved, I will answer that question privately so as to not add fuel to the fire. In the cases that have come up recently, the problem is simply discussion of an emotionally-charged or very personal topic that is not appropriate for this public forum. As the rules for posting say, discussion in the off-topic forums is intended for lighthearted and enjoyable discussions like you might find around a water cooler at work.

You will notice that in the recent example I moved and locked the entire thread in response to complaints, not a single post.

Edited to add: I should also say that I have been doing the "lock the thread and quietly let it pass" thing for 2.5 years now. While it obviously works in stopping that individual discussion, it does not prevent the same issues from coming back again and again. The Rubber Room now exists precisely to call attention to the problem. People will see what kind of discussions end up there and understand better what offends their fellow Sew What's Up members.

[fabric_addict]

Ah I see. As someone who studies how people learn, I am curious to see if this strategy works. It makes sense.

I wasn't sure if the alert button included comments since I'd never used it before...I'd only accidentally clicked it in other forums and in those forums it didn't ask me why...it just marked it as offensive. I'm glad that you've thought to include it here, especially since it is possible to accidentally click those too. OH..I also didn't realize you could lock a single post rather than the whole thread. How interesting.

I definitely agree that the offending person(s) should be messaged personally, especially for any detailed information. However, it might be a more useful lesson to the rest of the board, if these could also include, if you're not already doing so, a brief, general reason why a particular thread got bumped so that those who look at threads in the rubber room know the reason and don't have to guess (and possibly come to the wrong conclusion). For example, the explanation you gave in your response above would be great..."This thread was moved from the ____ forum to the rubber room because the content was highly personal and emotionally-charged in a way that is inappropriate for a public forum intended for light water-cooler talk". This way we know exactly what to make of this "what not to do" example that has been set aside. Just a suggestion...

By the way, I was thinking about this site the other day...I commend you on all the hard work it must be to monitor this site and keep it running. I know I'd find dealing with this sort of stuff to be quite a headache. I've been to many sites on the Internet, and this one has by far been the best.

[kaitlinnegan]

I'm testing the alert on my own message.

[kaitlinnegan]

I could give that explanation, but the explanation would be the same for every post that I move to the Rubber Room. The Rubber Room exists in response to member complaints, not because of my own feelings, so I am not going to attempt to speak for others to explain why they were offended by the content of a post.

I am happy to answer questions, but I do want to be clear that this method for dealing with problematic posts is not open for debate. I will hopefully not have to use it often.