Why aren't you even TRYING to communicate with us?

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1

So we have a 19-page (at this writing) thread full of people with concerns and complaints about the new BBQ Pit rules. Administration response has been sparse and unhelpful (and in at least one instance, admittedly non-serious). With the lack of any serious response or discussion from the adminstration, tempers are getting heated, assumptions are getting made, and frustration is mounting.

One can interpret the lack of response in several ways. The best-case scenario would be something like “We are preparing a definitive response and will not comment until then.” Worst-case would be something like, “We don’t care, your opinions are not important to us at all, all you nay-sayers can say what you please, we’re not listening.”

I would’ve hoped that the real situation would be something close to the former. However, several things have led me to believe, sadly, that it’s not. The latest being the participation of an administrator and several moderators in this thread in MPSIMS.

All right. I understand that “The Customer is Always Right” is not a truism; however, I always believed that basic customer service entailed listening to your customers respectfully, and addressing their views seriously – even though you may privately think that they’re full of it. Yes, sometimes, you can do no more and just have to walk away…but if you do the listening and responding well at the start, most of your customer complaints won’t go that far.

If someone on the SDMB administration team would’ve stood up from the beginning and responded to our questions with openness and clarity – even if that response wasn’t something that we would have liked – tempers wouldn’t be flaring, and the “new Pit Rules” thread wouldn’t be half as long. Ignoring us and treating us as if we were just a nuisance…

I asked this before, and I’ll ask it again here:

Do you want us to stay?

The SDMB will survive, even if all of us who are upset leave. It will be a smaller and less interesting place to be, but it will survive.

2

They already posted a definitive response. According to Ed, if we don’t like the new rules we can fuck the hell off.

3

Must’ve missed that one. The few responses I’ve seen were on the order of “wait and see how it works out”, which in my book translates to “if we wait long enough, we can tell’em that it’s too late to change it back now.”

4

Nope, pretty much just fuck off.

5

The timetable is all screwed up. If this were a spur of the moment decision, maybe “wait and see” would make some sense, but Ed has had months and months to formulate his policy, codify it, troubleshoot it (with his crack staff), revise it–but instead he’s decided to roll it out, leave it vague, stir up shit in general, and fuck us if we’ve got questions or concerns. “Wait and see” is a gigantic “FUUUUUUCK YOU!!” to his clientele, which is his right, of course, but not a widely acknowledged customer-relations strategy.

I remain interested in the long-term goals of the SDMB. Obviously the new Pit rules are a key to figuring out where this MB wants to be, and it would be helpful to us who want to stay or leave if we could figure out what kind of place the SD is intending to change (or not) into. If it’s not a portent of a significant change (and **Ed ** has implied that and its opposite recently, so who knows?) then it’s merely a personal snit of Ed’s, that may not amount to a lot more than “Don’t be a jerk,” specifically the type of poster (or perhaps certain specific posters) who annoys **Ed **with a particular brand of jerkish behavior. What that brand is, or who these posters are, Ed chooses to keep to himself, which looks suspiciously as if he isn’t quite sure WTF he’s doing or trying to do here, just that he’s got a short fuse, likes issuing rash edicts but doesn’t like so much making them line up in a consistent or predictable manner.

If I had to guess, I’d say that the strategy here is to lay out this incomprehensible policy, restrict the number of threads in which it is discussed (have you ever seen so many threads closed in one day discussing a board policy?), stay out of that thread for a long time, and finally announce, as the OP says, “Look, it is what it is, and has been for the past [number of days or weeks]–deal with it, okay?” Some complainers will leave, some will stay and shut their mouths, some will stay and keep complaining, and Ed will find pretexts to ban those who complain the hardest, the longest or the most skillfully.

There are enough suckups, asskissers, pliable posters, Pit-haters, civility-uber-alles advocates and uninformed morons to keep the SD going, if not going strong, and maybe that’s what Ed is shooting for, and why he chooses not to communicate with us. We’re dead to him already–we just don’t know it yet.

6

Damn. I guess that answers my question then.

Maybe I should’ve just started a thread for people to suggest alternatives to the SDMB. I wonder how long THAT would stay open.

Sadly, I must agree with you. The only thing that keeps me coming back at this point is memories of what the Dope used to be. If Ed is so hell-bent on removing what made this place unique, well, more power to him, I guess.

7

In my case, I get tired of saying the same thing over and over. For example, a posters asks a question, and I do my best to answer it. I edit it several times, to remove the worst of my snark. I feel that I’ve done my job. Then along come twenty more posters, each one asking a nearly identical question. I might answer one or two more posters, but after that, I figure that I’ve done my best. I tend to think that the last posters are just trying to game the rules, trying to see just how far they can push the envelope. I don’t feel that they are asking the questions in good faith.

After a few pages, I will tend to just not open the thread. I figure it’s just more of the same. Occasionally someone reports the thread, or someone sends me a link to it, asking me about it. Then I’ll go back and read the link. Usually I try to read all of the stuff that I’ve missed, but there are only so many hours in a day, you know? And my doctor has made it very clear that he wants me to spend less time in front of a computer. The bottom line is, I am not willing to spend more than about four hours a day doing mod/admin duties for the SDMB, no matter how much I love the board. I do have other things going on in my life. Some days I’ll be willing and able to spend more than that four hours a day. Other days I won’t be able to spend any time at all on the SDMB, for reasons beyond my control.

There are some posters who will make sure to post a slam against one or more of the moderating staff, rules, or both, in any of these types of threads. For the most part, I don’t pay any attention to their complaints, because nothing, NOTHING that any of the staff do will make them happy. They only want to complain (and, before the new rules, abuse the staff).

Most of you, yes. There are some posters who would improve the board if they’d quit posting.

The above is just my experiences and reasoning. Do not apply my experiences and reasoning to other mods/admins unless they say that you can.

8

This is silly. There have been a lot of threads about the changes, people’s reactions and so on, and mods and admins have participated in a lot of them. Most of the time we post as we see fit, and believe it or not we’re on the board for fun, so if I’m participating in a jokey thread about these events, you shouldn’t conclude it’s indicative of anything else.

True.

There have been threads about the rule change, with responses from mods and admins, since a little while after the changes were announced.

Yes, we want people to stay. Is this a serious question? If it is I’m sort of curious how you think that’s supposed to work - do you think the proposed business model for the board involves increasing revenue by driving people off?

9

Thank you for your response, Lynn. I do have a couple of questions about it, if you have the time.

Fair enough. However, at least in this case, I feel that a lot of the posters posting similar questions are doing so because they feel that the question hasn’t really been answered. Ed has posted 12 times in the Pit Rules thread, but he hasn’t addressed many of the questions raised. You haven’t posted in that thread at all.

Also, Ed’s few posts in that thread seem to indicate that he doesn’t take our questions and concerns seriously, leading to the idea, “if he doesn’t take us seriously, why should we take him seriously?” which leads to later posts that may be “trying to game the rules.” Had we had concrete answers earlier in the thread, those posts wouldn’t have come up (in my humble opinion).

10

Lynn, if you’re not able and willing to do the job, give it to somebody who is.

11

Some may not be, but I assure you we are for the most part genuinely confused. As I said in my post in the other thread, I believe (based on substantial moderating experience) that this rule is impossible to communicate. I’m sure you’ve answered questions in good faith, and to the best of your ability, but it’s neither a reflection on you nor on us that we just don’t get it; this rule cannot be clearly articulated.

Essentially what we’ve been left with is an instruction to treat it as a black box, and learn from its implementation. The only trouble there is that it’s been in place for a matter of days, and already the implementation is self-contradictory (“asshole” bad, “ignorant asshole” good?). People aren’t going to be satisfied with this; it’s not sufficient that people believe the Mods know what the rule means - they want to have an intuition of their own before they post that they can use to stay within the rules. That’s why you’re getting quite so many requests for clarification, and you’re already unable or unwilling to keep up with them.

I genuinely believe this new rule is going to significantly damage poster-staff relations; it can hardly be considered a good sign that after only a matter of days, you’re convinced that we’re mostly a set of contrarian jerks looking only to annoy you. Believe me, I know what it’s like to have irritating users badger you for endless clarification. I’ve certainly had days where I thought the entire population of my boards were a bunch of complete cretins whose sole purpose was to piss me, personally, off. And there certainly comes a point when you have to throw up your hands and say you can’t make it any clearer. But this is not that point, because the new rule hasn’t been made clear at all.

Communication and clarity are the keys to maintaining good mod/poster relationships. And the more clarity you have, the less communication you have to do. We’re going in the opposite direction: users will never be satisfied with this rule, you’ll get pissed off with the constant requests for explanation, and resentment will simmer and simmer. It doesn’t have to be like this.

12

It’s not so much your participation in the jokey threads, it’s been the relative non-participation in the original New Pit Rules thread. No posts from moderators or administrators in that thread in the last eight pages. (That’s about a day and a half, I guess…)

The responses we received before that were vague, and occasionally contradictory, and often didn’t address expressed concerns.

Well, I thought it was a rhetorical question. (I was kind of surprised by Lynn’s response of “There are some posters who would improve the board if they’d quit posting.” That’s kind of like a store manager telling people he didn’t want their business. Well within rights, yet controversial nonetheless.)

If I were thinner-skinned, I’d take offense at the implications that I’m “silly”, and that I’m stupid enough to think that the “business model for the board involves increasing revenue by driving people off”. When I was a board admin elsewhere on the internet, even though I still participated as a regular poster, I made damned sure that my interactions with other posters on board issues were as professional as possible.

13

While I was semi-retired for a while, I was an admin for YEARS. When the SDMB moved to the internet, as opposed to being an area of AOL, I started posting as a moderator, not a poster. I was a moderator on the AOL board as well. It’s not only a matter of days.

I’m willing and able to do the job, for a few hours of the day. I’m not willing and able to do the job 24/7. This is a hobby for me. I don’t get paid to do it. I am certainly not going to push myself to the point of burnout over it. And there are very few people who ARE willing and able to do the job. We have people who are willing, but are unsuitable. We have people who are suitable, but they have more sense. :smiley:

I wish I had an answer to this. Sometimes, I don’t post because I don’t have an answer. Sometimes, I want to think about things for a while, instead of posting the first thought that comes to my mind. In these cases, I copy the URL and paste it into my “Ongoing SDMB Projects” file, which I check regularly.

14

I’m not posting in there because I don’t want to contradict anyone else or speak for Ed, since I don’t think either one would be helpful.

The responses we received before that were vague, and occasionally contradictory, and often didn’t address expressed concerns.
Well, I thought it was a rhetorical question. (I was kind of surprised by Lynn’s response of “There are some posters who would improve the board if they’d quit posting.” That’s kind of like a store manager telling people he didn’t want their business. Well within rights, yet controversial nonetheless.)

I said it was silly to read anything else into some posts in the MPSIMS thread, not that you or your concerns were silly. I’m not sure how you could take offense at the second part: it’s a direct implication of the “do you want us to stay” question you asked. Like I said, yes, we want people to stay.

15

This is so clearly a misreading of the point you supposedly think you’re responding to, I have to wonder whether it’s a willful misreading. No one said you have been modding here for days. I don’t think anyone with two brain cells to rub together COULD think so. Dead Badger was stating the fact that the new Pit rules, not your modding, have been in effect for mere days now.

You plainly don’t have the time, energy or inclination to read the posts to which you are snippily and snarkily free to respond when you get a few free moments.

16

I missed this, and wanted to respond. I think everyone can sympathise wholeheartedly; no-one wants the admins to spend every waking hour in front of the PC. But surely this is all the more reason to have a clearer rule. To minimise the time you spend communicating, don’t just ignore people - we have genuine concerns, believe it or not. Rather, make the rules clearer so less communication is necessary in the first place. For example, a similar but (IMHO) much clearer version of the current rule might be:

[ul][li]No posts consisting entirely or almost entirely of personal abuse.[/li][li]No using the word “cunt”.[/ul][/li]You’d still get disagreement and debate, but I personally believe I could apply these two lines myself in order to post without ever getting warned. I have no such confidence at present, save by completely ceasing to insult people. You’ll never stop debates about whether particular rules are a good idea, and this is the sort of discussion an admin can eventually just ignore. But discussion about what the rule is? If that goes on for 20 pages, surely that’s an indication that something is wrong. As I said in the other thread, you’ve made a rod for your own back. Simply ignoring the complaints is one way of reducing your workload, but it’s just storing up problems for later.

I’m well aware of this - I was here when you were more a active admin before. My point was (as prr points out) relating to the new rule, not your tenure. In any case fine, maybe your jaundiced view of us crotchety bastards is something that’s built up over these years, but you’re still wrong: we’re genuinely confused. And if you’re really so convinced of our ill intentions, is moderating this board really something you want to do? Who are you doing it for, and why?

You’ve lost at least one respected mod as a direct result of this new rule, and possibly another; more still have chipped in saying they don’t comprehend the new move. It’s very hard to square this with your desire to spend as little time as possible doing what is, I am very well aware, a thankless task.

17

I read it as Lynn agreeing that she was convinced that we’re mostly a set of contrarian jerks looking only to annoy her, but that she’s come to that conclusion over the course of many years - not just a couple of days.

18

I’ve checked a random sampling in that thread, and saw some bantering going on, and the usual suspects giving the usual grief. I didn’t see anything that required an answer or comment from me. If there’s something SPECIFIC that I need to look at, I’d appreciate a PM.

I based my answer on decades of experience in retail. Some customers would cost us money for various reasons. Managers and owners do occasionally tell people that they are no longer welcome in the store. Of course, the most obvious reason is shoplifting. However, there are also people who thoughtlessly but continually damage the merchandise. There are the people who want to do a year’s worth of clothes shopping and come in at 5:55…and they know that the store closes at 6. There are the people who try on clothes when they have not bathed recently enough, or try on clothes that are three sizes too small. There are the people who decide that they don’t want that perishable item after all, and bury it behind the packs of underwear. Here on the message board, we have some posters who continually post stupid and flat out wrong things. We have posters who try to stir up shit. We have posters who are habitually rude to other posters. In some cases, they do this so often and so obviously that we ban them. In other cases, they don’t QUITE merit a banning, or even a warning, and yet they are pains in the asses. They don’t just bother the staff, they annoy other posters as well. I don’t know how many times I’ve received a private communication, asking me if I can’t just ban this person or that one, not for anything specific, but just because they’re a constant irritant. And then we have posters with mental health issues. Usually, they really don’t intend to aggravate, but yet they do. We had one guy who had an obsession with the SDMB, and kept on coming back time after time, sock after sock, and posting about the same issues. Well, actually, we have more than one guy like that, but this one particular guy really stands out in my memory. First poster that I’d banned, too.

RobuSensei, I don’t think that you’re silly about your concerns. However, sometimes these things take a while to work out. And by a while, I mean weeks. I don’t think that posting and posting and posting in the first few days really helps matters.

19

Lynn, I appreciate your answers. I can understand the reluctance about wading into the thread and trying to answer everyones questions. I understand that there are a usual cast of characters that try to attack the administration as often as possible. However, if you look at that thread I think it is a little different. The vast majority of the posters are not the usual suspects. The vast majority are not the most vocal pitizens. Most of the questions that were asked have not been answered. If it was the same people asking the same questions after they had been answered I can understand staying away. In that case I would say close the thread. That is not what is happening. I know its not fair to lay this on you. It should be Ed answering the questions and concerns.

20

Oh, please. Y’all are so predictable. You’ve BEEN answered. Y’all just don’t like the answer you got, so you keep hammering away trying to get a different answer. That’s very much commonplace around here, though admittedly it’s a much louder and larger crowd this time.

I raised concerns over the vagueness of the new Pit standard right as it came out. I got the response: wait and see how it plays out. I’ve decided to do just that. That’s the answer, folks, and hammering away for 50 pages of posts isn’t going to change it. Nor is bleating the same refrain over and over going to produce any different response. It kind of reminds me of the description of what happened to the Ainulindale: the brass and percussion of Melkor braying the same notes over and over, louder and louder, attempting to simply drown out any other sound.

Stop. Take a long five (days, not minutes). See what happens. Do what I believe mhendo said he was going to do: post as if the new rule wasn’t really much of a change and see what happens. When an issue comes up, deal with it politely and concisely with staff. If over the long run, evidence arises that one or more of your concerns was justifiable, raise it again, supported by your evidence. See if you can persuade Ed to modify or change his position. But don’t expect that the braying of horns is going to bring down the walls of Jericho. :wink: