Why do my posts suddenly need moderator approval?

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Tech_Support
Posts: 499
Joined: Mon Jun 01, 2015 7:00 pm

Re: Why do my posts suddenly need moderator approval?

Post by Tech_Support » Fri Aug 30, 2019 8:43 am

Dear sdrom33,
What makes you think that by using the term "aggressive lobbying" I am referring to public posts as opposed to other types of communication? You are of course quite correct in listing the definition of the term "Censor" but in common usage it is an emotive term and can have very different connotations we well you know. Besides, given that we have always removed posts that breached our forum rules, by the correct definition, we will have always 'censored' posts. So in that regard, this is nothing new. It is not something that we have just "started" as you suggest.

What we don't do is to disallow posts that we simply don't like or are critical of the company or its products which is what many people would take to mean by 'censorship'. We also don't disallow or remove posts that contain technical content that we feel is incorrect as has been requested. That I believe would be technical 'censorship' and despite "aggressive lobbying" is something that we have been clear that we will NOT do.

Active moderation now ensures that posts that breach the forum rules never actually get posted and that ensures that threads don't spiral out of control and descend into acrimonious and insulting behaviour before we get chance to intervene as has happened in the past.

The basic forum rules have been posted many times, but I think your suggestion of a published set of guidelines is a good one and that is something that we will look into.

Sincerely

Tech_Support

Reason: No reason

M0RON
Posts: 14
Joined: Wed Apr 03, 2019 10:18 am

Re: Why do my posts suddenly need moderator approval?

Post by M0RON » Sat Aug 31, 2019 1:14 pm

Personally I have no problem with the forum being actively moderated at all and that it is a good thing creating a positive feeling on the board. i do not believe that Tech Support would not publish a post because of incorrect technical information or criticism of it's product, which is excellent, and I fully respect and support their decision to not publish posts that in their opinion are unsuitable for an educational, helpful forum designed to further peoples enjoyment and understanding of the RSP series.
What has to be remembered is that the forum, along with most other if not all forums, has an owner and should that owner decide to impose rules upon the forum users then so be it.
Should anyone disagree with the owners rules or conditions then there are free to leave at any time and set up their own forum and their own set of rules.
Andy
M0RON
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ernestyn
Posts: 18
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Re: Why do my posts suddenly need moderator approval?

Post by ernestyn » Sat Aug 31, 2019 5:50 pm

Andy, problem is i do not see any rules. Can you show me?

Ernestyn
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Tech_Support
Posts: 499
Joined: Mon Jun 01, 2015 7:00 pm

Re: Why do my posts suddenly need moderator approval?

Post by Tech_Support » Sat Aug 31, 2019 6:30 pm

Anyone joining this forum has to agree to abide by the forum rules, which are clearly listed at the time. If they decline to abide by these rules, then they are not permitted to join. In addition, if you look at the bottom of any page, click on the "Terms" and you will see a full listing of the forum rules. So it is simply not true to say that these are not written down. They are and always have been. However, we will endeavour to find a way to ensure that these are more obvious on the front page for those who either forgot what they agreed to upon registration or simply didn't bother to read them.

Sincerely

Tech_Support

Reason: No reason

Tech_Support
Posts: 499
Joined: Mon Jun 01, 2015 7:00 pm

Re: Why do my posts suddenly need moderator approval?

Post by Tech_Support » Sat Aug 31, 2019 6:56 pm

As all will now see, as well as the forum rules being listed in the Terms section and the registration page (as they have always been), they are now highlighted in a red banner at the top of each section or thread, so now no one should have any problems in finding them.

Sincerely

Tech_Support

Reason: No reason

M0RON
Posts: 14
Joined: Wed Apr 03, 2019 10:18 am

Re: Why do my posts suddenly need moderator approval?

Post by M0RON » Sat Aug 31, 2019 6:57 pm

ernestyn wrote:
Sat Aug 31, 2019 5:50 pm
Andy, problem is i do not see any rules. Can you show me?

Ernestyn
Hi Ernestyn,
Tech support beat me to it otherwise I'd have pointed them out to you.
73
Andy
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glovisol
Posts: 662
Joined: Thu May 10, 2018 6:42 pm
Location: Piedmont, Italy

Re: Why do my posts suddenly need moderator approval?

Post by glovisol » Sun Sep 01, 2019 4:41 pm

I hope I will be allowed to respectfully continue to put forward in this thread my observations whereby the new "preventive cemsorship" policy is projecting a negative and usuitable image of our Community Forum and of SDRplay, as well as resulting in an unjustified oppression of Forum Members.

1) The well known text initially presented in the "terms" section and now also placed in a banner because of criticism on the above mentioned policy, consists of a very short sentence, which, besides being of difficult interpretation, is not only too syntetic, but also completely inaccurate both with regards to the old and the new policy. This text is shown below. The consequence for repeated uploading of "disruptive" and "inframmatory" posts is the banning of the individual concened. Nowhere in the section "Terms" the question of cancelling unsuitable posts is mentioned. Furthermore the text does not mention whether this action has to be taken AFTER the post has been published or JUST AFTER it has been uploaded.
Please avoid disruptive behaviour. Repeated posts that are disruptive and/or inflammatory may well result in the banning of the individual concerned from the forum.
2) Anyone looking at the GENERAL section of our forum, will see it consists, as of today, of 883 topics and that the first topic is dated January 7th, 2015. The new preventive censorship policy has been adopted on Sunday, July 21st, 2019. Therefore the old and commonly experienced policy has been good enough to serve for more than 4 1/2 years. Then, for a few controversies among Forum Members, less in number than the fingers of one hand and negligible, when confronted with literarly thousands of transactions and tens of thousand of views, carried on the Forum, all of sudden, it has been decided to introduce this restrictive new policy. In my modest opinion I conclude that this decision and this behaviour on part of Forum Management cannot be justified on a rational basis and seems to be caused by an altered sense of proportions.

3) Looking at the "code of conduct" / regulatory situation (e.g. the "Terms") I observe that not only this text is not adequate now, as it does not correspond to the sanctions mentioned, if compared to the sanctions applied, but it did not correspond in the past, when the so called "inflammatory" posts were removed by authority of Tech_Support.

4) Finally it cannot be claimed that the mention of:
All posts will be actively moderated
can justify the behaviour observed in the past and/or the behavior observed at present times, for the simple reason that the menaning of the provision of "active moderation" as a synonym of "preventive censorship" has been explained to Forum Members only two days ago. Surely Forum Management cannot expect Forum Members residing in all parts of the world to know the meaning of such a provision, if unexplained, so, with due respect, Forum Management has been negligent in the publication of scarce, ambigous and unexplained Forum Rules, as well as in arbitrarily applying them.


I conclude: for all the reasons explained in my previous posts, with the welfare and satisfaction of all concerned, Forum Management included, as my sole interest, I again respectfully urge and ask Tech_Support, SDRplay and all concerned, to seriously consider the facts brought to their attention and to:

- Prepare and publish a comprehensive, explicit and readily understandable code of conduct
and
- Abandon the preventive censorship policy.

Gianfranco Lovisolo
(glovisol)
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glovisol
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Re: Why do my posts suddenly need moderator approval?

Post by glovisol » Sun Sep 01, 2019 7:28 pm

HERE BELOW I POST AGAIN MY ORIGINAL, UNAMENDED MESSAGE, POSTED 31/08/2019, THAT WAS CANCELLED BY MISTAKE.

THE ELECTRONIC JAIL
OR
QUI CUSTODIET CUSTODES?


Today is approximately 14 months since I started contributing to this Forum. I was attracted by the outstanding quality of the RSP Processor receivers by SDR Play, the elegance of their designs, the magic and faultless performance of the associated software and the praiseworthy and unique completeness and accuracy of their specifications.

If we add that all this was achieved at commercial prices impossible to match by anybody else (Chinese Industry included) on a very short time scale, that is, less years than the fingers of one hand, we have to conclude we are in presence of an unique phenomenon of outstanding design capability and industrial/commercial organization. An organization that was able to take, with fantastic timing and very hard work, full advantage of the latest developments in technological advances.

Obviously we are talking of excellence here. But if excellence is to be the word, then excellence PLUS must be in the SDRplay Community Forum, which is the VERY FIRST IMAGE that the SDRplay organization is projecting to the world.

I wish to make clear here I am no employee of SDRplay and I do not get any richer or any poorer by contributing to this Community Forum, so my only interest has been to enter the door of this house, share its roof of Technical Knowledge with very many friends from all over the world and contribute, to the best of my abilities, with the technical experience and knowledge I had accumulated during my lifetime of Education and Work.

None of us is perfect and holds the secret of faultless judgement and because of this, at times the welfare of any Human Organisation is limited by antagonism and envy among its members. The same spirit whereby I was attracted to the Forum, so that a little of the light generated by the SDRplay success could be reflected upon my humble person, is the spirit that in some (luckily, very few!) instances pushed other Forum members to simply contradict or antagonize my work (and the work of other friends!) with specious arguments. Yet, when I was in the wrong I always tried to readily admit and quickly correct my mistake and, when I was in the right, I was (as other victims of attack) always able to defend myself and my writings, I hope with passable balance and politeness.

In the last of these instances, SDRplay, in the person of Tech_Support, took the step of introducing prior censorship, which has been and is called (in George Orwell’s newspeak, perhaps?) “active moderation”. Since the very first, and because I wish the BEST for our Forum, I urgently opposed this abhorrent practice, whereby each one of us is preliminarily suspected to be a criminal and any post deemed to be most probably a criminal script, until Big Brother examines it and decides (in his immense knowledge and infallible rightfullness) it can be accepted.

It is true I tried any possible avenue, by writing to Tech_Support and to other Forum members to try and convince SDRplay that this “active moderation” business is the worst possible way to solve a problem which has been and is of very modest entity anyway. It is true that I proposed, if censorship must be, at least officially criticize (not censor!) ludicrous posts on a technical basis, like you would criticize a post stating the newfangled flat Earth theories of fake news repute. If these actions (again in newspeak, perhaps?) can be defined “aggressive lobbying” I leave the readers of this post to judge.

One very sore point is, as sdom33 rightly showed and Tech_Support had to admit, that preventive censorship was introduced, while no criteria for which censorship had to be applied, were ever officially published on the Forum’s General Information Section. As of today, these criteria have yet to be published. How can Tech_Support, in all seriousness, tell us that they will not censor “what they do not like”, “criticism to their Company”, etc….How can any human being potentially and preventively deprive of the freedom of expression other human beings and be the unique, self appointed judge, of their actions? I surely am not questioning the good faith of Tech_Support, but the wisdom of this choice. A choice that quickly transformed our Forum into a prison, because it is in prisons that "active moderation" is enforced.

And, with due respect to Tech_Support, it is NOT true, that, after all, nothing has changed because posts were cancelled even before. One thing is to cancel a script whose value (positive or negative) any Forum Member can judge by himself, another is to cancel it in secret, far from the attention of Forum Members. That we have to debate such obvious arguments is perhaps proof of the present degradation of our Civilisation.

But apart from these considerations, preventive censorship, whatever name you give it, is an abhorrent and repugnant practice, a mistake that SDRplay should urgently make good, not in the interest of the undersigned, who has nothing to gain or to lose, but in the interest of all Forum Members and of SDRplay itself, as a Public Organisation.

So my humble proposal to Tech_Support, to SDRplay and to all Forum Members, is to remove preventive censorship, on the grounds it is a mistake to adopt such a measure in the absence of published rules to properly enforce it, to publish an official code of conduct for the Forum and to monitor the situation. There will be ample time for re-examining where we stand, depending on what will happen next.

"No law can be defined a law, if not put in writing"
and
"Written publication is the essence of the law itself"
Marcus Tullius Cicero, Rome, B January 106, A.C. - D December 43, A.C.

glovisol
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glovisol
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Re: Why do my posts suddenly need moderator approval?

Post by glovisol » Mon Sep 02, 2019 6:11 am

In my post of 31/08/2019 ("THE ELECTRONIC JAIL & QUI CUSODIET CUSTODES)" the following can be read:
In the last of these instances, SDRplay, in the person of Tech_Support, took the step of introducing prior censorship, which has been and is called (in George Orwell’s newspeak, perhaps?) “active moderation”. Since the very first, and because I wish the BEST for our Forum, I urgently opposed this abhorrent practice, whereby each one of us is preliminarily suspected to be a criminal and any post deemed to be most probably a criminal script, until Big Brother examines it and decides (in his immense knowledge and infallible rightfullness) it can be accepted.
Having mentioned in my last post that the introduction of the new policy by Forum Management has been probably caused by an "altered sense of proportions", and realising that, in the defence of my vision, I too have lost mine, I wish to sincerely apologise for having compared Tech_Support to the "Big Brother" of George Orwell's famous "1984".

Apart from this, my judgement on the new policy, as expressed above, fully stands and I take this opportunity for reiterating my appeal for having this policy reverted to the previous one.

I also take this opportunity to praise the Integrity and fair play of Tech_Support and of Forum Management for always admitting such contrarian judgements to the new policy.

glovisol
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Paul
Posts: 355
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Location: SW UK

Re: Why do my posts suddenly need moderator approval?

Post by Paul » Mon Sep 02, 2019 7:24 am

I hope that this comment may be seen as constructive.
Firstly I have no experience of organising, running or controlling (moderating) a forum and am therefor not qualified to criticize the change in the way this forum is now moderated (content controlled) and have observed the regrettable way in which some contributors have conducted themselves.
It is, of course, quite possible to conduct oneself properly in strict accordance with the rules and yet still have a negative impact.
However, it would seem that those moderating the forum at those times were pretty well "on top" of the situation/s that occurred and seemingly dealt with them appropriately, so why did it become necessary to change the policy?
What is the problem with barring any miscreants and removing their posts, rather than obviously upsetting those who are valuable contributors?
Surely, the task of moderating all posts must be an onerous one.
I have no problem with my posts (whether useful or not) being moderated prior to inclusion and the forum is still useful (at least to neophytes such as myself).
So, in conclusion, I would like to second any request for the company to revert to the previous and from a user's point of view, totally satisfactory way of controlling this valuable resource.
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