After Hours Modding of the Pope threads

markodaly

In AH we have two threads, which have both descended into the same type of tit for tat troll-feast that is synonymous with any thread that has to do with the Roman Catholic Church in After Hours.

There has been no control or direction from the Mods on these threads regarding the tone and direction of each of them. It appears that its a free for all to say what you want about the church and pope, including calling the present pope a pedophile himself, without repercussions from the mods.

Anyway, If one wanted to have a thread about the history of church abuse in AH, fine. Perhaps that could have been directed into the 'Should we protest the Pope's visit' thread. People could debate that issue with their heart's content.

That would leave the other thread free to discuss the actual visit itself, without having to wade through the same and repeated discussion that is already happening in another thread, where a handful of posters take over and drive their own agenda and repeated the exact same points.

Otherwise, just merge the threads. If there are two threads, they should be discussing two different things, should they not?

dudara

Moving to the Help Desk as this is a specific issue, as opposed to Feedback

markodaly

Thank you. I did not know that this may be a better place for it.

To be honest, the moderation of the Pope threads in AH is a disgrace. It seems 'your ma' and pedophile jokes is acceptable while those that do not go along the counter-narrative are thread banned.

Beasty

Have you discussed this directly with the mods or CMods?

I would initially comment that it's not the mods role to direct tone or direction of threads, although clearly they do have a role in terms of dealing with reported posts or any issues they become aware of where posters are not following the forum charter or site rules

I have looked back and seen there are a number of threads relating to the Pope and his visit to Ireland since the visit was announced. It appears there are currently 2 active threads that have gained traction with another started this morning. I will admit to not having looked in any of the threads in any detail, but am conscious that there has been some controversy in the threads if only based on the number of reported posts.

A cursory glance suggests one of those threads is talking about the visit itself, and another looking at negative aspects of the visit (with the new one bringing Britain into the discussion). It does not seem to me, given the scale of this occasion, inappropriate to have those 2 different threads with what appears to be markedly differing approaches/views. I appreciate that may well result in some crossover of discussion, but that in itself is not necessarily an issue

Whichever way you look at it though this is likely to divide opinion, and a forum like AH is not the place for detailed analysis of the history of the Catholic church and recent related scandals. We are bound to get very differing views on the topics of the Pope and Catholic church

I certainly agree that any breaches of forum or site rules should be dealt with, but please bear in mind the scale and speed of discussion. It may well be that mods have not been able to pick up on all reports, which brings me back to my initial question. Have you sought any clarity from forum mods?

I appreciate this may come across as avoiding the question, but as I have indicated these are not discussions I have been close to. Local mods, CMods or indeed other Admins may have been following the discussions more closely, in which case I would welcome any input they may have into this thread

I’ve read the charter of this forum and I don’t see where it says a user can’t contribute to a thread started by someone else. So sorry in advance if this isn’t allowed.
I’d like to + 1 the OP . The moderation of both main “Pope” threads was dreadful and it permitted a small group of posters the opportunity to troll and bait posters and pretty much say as they pleased under the guise of “debate” - it wasn’t AH mods finest hour by a long way.
I saw a poster got banned for calling these idiots c**ts. Well. I don’t blame that poster- like I said, the baiting and trolling was endless and anyway, pretty much 80% of discussion on the threads was off-topic.

Beasty

Deleted User wrote: »

I’ve read the charter of this forum and I don’t see where it says a user can’t contribute to a thread started by someone else. So sorry in advance if this isn’t allowed.

Yes it's allowed, but posts are pre-approved here so anything off-topic or non-constructive is unlikely to get approved. Your input is welcome, as is that from other users who have views (either way) on the issue raised in the OP

Beasty

Beasty wrote: »

Yes it's allowed, but posts are pre-approved here so anything off-topic or non-constructive is unlikely to get approved. Your input is welcome, as is that from other users who have views (either way) on the issue raised in the OP

Thanks Beasty. I’ll be as specific as I can so at this point, and my points will be around constructive feedback only. My reason for posting here is:

1. Thread titles were very ambiguous for a topic that was obviously going to be decisive.

2. No obvious AH moderation throughout or mod warnings in the title which would have helped somewhat

3. An awful lot of generalizations I.e “people attending Popes mass are scum” - posted yesterday or Saturday, only called out this evening- but a lot more examples similar to this throughout.

4. A lot of low level trolling or maybe baiting is a better term-making statements to get a rise from people

5. Two main threads- one asking who’s going and the other asking should we protest- both fair enough titles in the normal course of events and in the early stages of these threads, it was BAU for AH- but both descended into catholic bashing and Pope bashing- no real debate and nothing distinguished the two threads.

6. Anyone who posted anything positive about the weekend and the events were pretty much classed as pedofile supporters.

I’m not going to use up any more of your time, nor mine, on this issue. Thank you for listening.

markodaly

Have you discussed this directly with the mods or CMods?

I have discussed this with an AH mod but I am not confident that they will approach this with a level clear unbiased fashion given the history of posts they have in the same thread, where he/she defends posters calling the current pope a pedophile, even though that statement is legally defamatory. So forgive me if I had little satisfaction with that outcome.

I would initially comment that it's not the mods role to direct tone or direction of threads, although clearly they do have a role in terms of dealing with reported posts or any issues they become aware of where posters are not following the forum charter or site rules

I would agree to a certain extent, threads take on a life of their own and flow according to the mood, but it is customary for Mods to offer guidance and to step in when a thread goes off the rails, especially in threads when something contentious is being discussed. Take for instance the Repeal the 8th super thread, or the SSM super thread. Mods will clarify what rules are applicable to the thread in the OP and keep an eye on it, with the title stating as such.

In this occasion, the threads were left run amok which seems to have suited some of the Moderators.

I have looked back and seen there are a number of threads relating to the Pope and his visit to Ireland since the visit was announced. It appears there are currently 2 active threads that have gained traction with another started this morning. I will admit to not having looked in any of the threads in any detail, but am conscious that there has been some controversy in the threads if only based on the number of reported posts.

A cursory glance suggests one of those threads is talking about the visit itself, and another looking at negative aspects of the visit (with the new one bringing Britain into the discussion). It does not seem to me, given the scale of this occasion, inappropriate to have those 2 different threads with what appears to be markedly differing approaches/views. I appreciate that may well result in some crossover of discussion, but that in itself is not necessarily an issue

We agree here in a way.

There is no issue at all having more than one thread. On this occasion, there were two threads active with each meant to have a different level of discussion. One was to look at the broader picture of the church and the popes visit itself, and the history of abuse within the hierarchy of the church. This is a valid discussion to have.

The other thread was meant to discus the actual visit itself, the day by day account of the visit, talk about the weather, turnout, songs, speech's and what not. It is expected to have some crossover, but what actually materialised was a cohort of posters just trolling both threads in a drive by fashion, with frankly distasteful comments, like I alluded to above.

Comments like these were atypical.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=107895717&postcount=2092

Is it true no children are allowed in the Phoneix Park tomorrow for their own safety?

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=107896728&postcount=2172

ELM327 wrote: »

So, to surmise

• Attending the freedom of expression demonstration against a political decision - bad
• Attending an event for the head paedophile - good

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=107906249&postcount=2341

ELM327 wrote: »

Deny Deny Deny
Cover up Cover up Cover up


The church continues its everpresent method of dealing with anything.


Scum, the lot of them, including the 120,000 people in attendance

Moderators cannot be held responsible for comments posters make, but they are responsible for letting posters away with such comments, which then just emboldens them to carry on, thus destroying what could have been a good thread.

Lastly, I do not think its unreasonable to expect that people who wanted to comment on the thread regarding the day by day activities not have their faith called in to question by every 3rd poster, as if they were personally responsible for the actions of the church hierarchy.

Either boards welcomes a diverse points of view or it does not. Having a cohort of a set of posters haranguing posters, in a thread about the pope's visit is in my opinion not how boards should present itself as a diverse community led website.

Whichever way you look at it though this is likely to divide opinion, and a forum like AH is not the place for detailed analysis of the history of the Catholic church and recent related scandals. We are bound to get very differing views on the topics of the Pope and Catholic church

I agree, AH is not really the place to discuss the finite intricacies of Cannon law and how it relates to modern Ireland or anything substantive like that.

However, AH regardless should be a place where diverse opinion is welcome and protected. Like it or not, AH seems to be the general place where people check out whats going on, and is the largest forum on boards. Good discussion can happen there. This is evidenced by the Repeal the 8th super thread or the SSM super thread, as I mentioned before. The difference this time is that the moderators took a little time to set down some groundrules for these contentious topics. However, when it comes to the Pope's visit this leadership and direction was severely lacking, cross over trolling was tolerated, thus leading to the mess we had on those thread.

I would welcome any input they may have into this thread

As would I.