Kicked Off the Methownet BB

[Fun CH]

They watch the threads like the latest hospital post and when it gets to a "tipping point", they take it off.

According to Maria, they don't read the threads.

Any moderation of specific posts happens at the membership level when a post is reported for a rules violation. But that appears to take time in some cases to delete posts and in many cases entire threads are pulled.

So people being civil who take the time to post the facts on a subject will also have their posts deleted even without have broken any forum rules.

That is poor moderation and its not working out well.. But my understanding is that that forum has had problems for many years.

I can't understand why they don't just get rid of opinion type threads and focus on what they do best ie buy/sell/wanted ads and community notices such as the TV is out.

On that pulled thread, the person who didn't sign her name made a few good points such push back on name calling, anti division and the fact that the FDA recalls a.large number of previously approved drugs.

[PAL]

They watch the threads like the latest hospital post and when it gets to a "tipping point", they take it off. And it was reaching a tipping point. Pointing out names of businesses and people and name calling. Presenting misinformation, which it is not, to the people presenting it. So, it was taken off.
Read today's MVN. Tell me where the hostility is coming from. It's very obvious in the paper, who it is coming from.
It sure it dividing our community. And the hostility on the BB was on both sides, at times. I will speak up for David. He was valiantly trying to give out very good information. But after awhile, it is frustrating and minds won't be changed anyway. But I think, I have to keep trying.
I just keep saying that those that are vaccinated have been very patient and me thinks my patience is running thin.
People start talking about how their freedom is being impinged upon. How it's like Nazi Germany or it's Marxist. They need to read their history. They have no clue.

[Mark58]

My guess is that underlying it all is the fact that Methownet is a business. So making money takes precedence and pissing some people off might lead to loss of revenue, so they just axe potentially controversial topics. Pretty sad, particularly because they cut off some voices of reason.

Mark Miller

[anonloser]

I can't tell if the mods only check once every few days or if they just have an immense bias towards bull***. Because obviously they just nuke whole threads, but if I make a "quit your bull***" comment without a signature it doesn't last more than 12 hours while straight up right wing disinformation will last dayyyys some times.

It is in fact a mess.

[pasayten]

They zapped my thread about the missing thread and it was properly signed... Jeesh...

[Fun CH]

It was not great before the name rule, but the rule hasn't fixed the issue. It's just made it less useful for most people. What it needs is either proper moderation or tools for the community at large to self moderate. The former is prone to bias and the latter to manipulation, but it would be more useful than it's current state.

And I agree. Different sections are needed.

I just checked a thread about Covid hospital rates. Two posters without signatures are heavy into a repeating a Covid vaccine disinformation campaign.

Anyonr can check to see if the rules violation has been reported by clicking on the ! icon.

All the posts without signatures have been reported, some a few days old, and the posts are still there.

So the community members are making an effort to have everyone follow the rules.

But the owners don't even enforce their own rules.

What a mess.

[anonloser]

It was not great before the name rule, but the rule hasn't fixed the issue. It's just made it less useful for most people. What it needs is either proper moderation or tools for the community at large to self moderate. The former is prone to bias and the latter to manipulation, but it would be more useful than it's current state.

And I agree. Different sections are needed.

[Fun CH]

I didn't read the bulletin board when the whole signature things started but I heard there was really bad behavior before that.

I have a few friends that won't even read the thing anymore because they were personally attacked when that whole REA co-op controversy was taking place.

It should be geared towards buy and sell and place to post community activities and notices.

At the very least they should have a separate section of the forum for the opinions as they tend to displace people trying get rid of buy/sell/ free
stuff.

The new opinion section could have a title something like "the padded room".

[anonloser]

I was threatened for banning because they were "tired of having to delete my posts." I checked and they had had to remove two of my posts for an opinion without signature over a two year period. A third one they removed was directions on how to add a user to the "Friends and Foes" list. So, step by step directions to use a feature on their own site qualified for deletion and an emailed threat for being "snarky".

Not sure if they got the wrong person or what, but the rules and moderation are inconsistently enforced and their definition of what constitutes an "opinion" is inaccurate.

As a side rant, the rule that an opinion must be accompanied by a name has proven to be completely useless. It's only accomplishment is to ensure that completely unfounded claims and baseless "opinions" can be posted by those who are divorced from reality. Any attempt at moderate discussion or factual conversation can be derailed by whatever insane commentary so long as you put a name on it and then ultimately that conversation will be deleted because it's "political". Why would any sane moderate person want to get involved with someone yelling "screw your science". Or one of my other favorites was someone yelling about liberals being too cowardly to post their opinion and then in the same sentence making thinly veiled threats of physical harm to those exact people for disagreeing. Yeah, no sh** people don't feel like publicly outing themselves with someone who feels 100% comfortable making physical threats in a public space.

They should just call it a classifieds and give up on providing a place for discussion since there's none of substance to be had.

End vent. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[mister_coffee]

Looks like "barnone" is taking his post removals personally and blames you for them.

Some people...

[PAL]

You know, I almost called them after I got back from my hike to ask the to take down my post about the Watershed Music Festival. I confess I knew that by posting it I would get some negative responses, but knew I would get mostly positive and informative responses. I may still call them, but the post has sort of faded away, because the people responding now, are not going to get a response from me. It may die on it's own. If one of them revives it, I will call them. It seemed to be upsetting someone greatly and I thought I should have it taken down.
Will see what tomorrow brings. Unless David says something!
Pearl

[tristanbgilb]

I have found lots of neat stuff on the www.Methownet.com bulletin board including a free tandem bike. It gets lots of traffic but I was kicked off it years ago and had to call and ask to be reinstated as a member promising to be a good citizen.

[Fun CH]

Sad the MethownetBB continues to provide a platform for disimformation concerning lies such as a stolen election and covid is a hoax.

Its long past time for that BB to act responsibly and not continue to be a platform for community divisivness and harm that prolongs this pandamic. Jeff and Maria, this is on you. Members should not have to police your forum for you.
Moderate your forum Or shut it down, please.

[Fun CH]

David, those are all very good points. However don't you think It is important to remain civil and refrain from public name calling or personal attack as much as possible?

I do acknowledge that is not an always an easy thing to do and twice now on the internet I've done just that. So I do have some experience with this issue and tend to regret those actions due to my lack of empathy in those particular instances.



But can't outrage be expressed intelligently and with respect?

[mister_coffee]

From Jessica Wildfire (https://jessicalexicus.medium.com/)

There’s this idea that if you’re a smart, enlightened person then you’re not allowed to express outrage, or even sarcasm. You have to tolerate everyone and their dumb arse opinions. You have to do all the work to see where they’re coming from. You have to find ways to convince them to do the right thing, even if they make zero effort to meet you halfway.

Enough with outreach and understanding. Respecting “other opinions” is making things worse. It validates selfishness, and sets us up for the next disaster where they refuse to do the right thing. Meanwhile, it doesn’t matter how hard we try to respect their distorted notions of personal liberty, because they never, ever return the favor. They’re more than happy to violate other people’s rights in the name of their own causes. Our society can’t take any more of this. Good people are suffering.

[Fun CH]

Jeesh... another thread on methownet talking about the fire and alf had a critical of fire fighters reply... POOF... thread gone...

P.S. I do have a copy of alf's reply...

I find it best to no longer read what he posts.

[pasayten]

Jeesh... another thread on methownet talking about the fire and alf had a critical of fire fighters reply... POOF... thread gone...

P.S. I do have a copy of alf's reply...

[Fun CH]

Not kicked off, but methownet removed my post letting folks know the link to the Fire Info BB thread on this BB... and didn't add it to their "fire info links" page... Can't stand a better source for info!!! Jeesh... lol...

In actuality, the methownet BB is not well suited for the easy dissemination of important information in significant events affecting the community due to its curtailed features found on most bulletin boards... Pictures, pdf files, and offsite links. They may do this to a lack of staff time for moderation during normal times, but I firmly believe in times like this, these features should be turned on.

agree. The NMBB is not even good for fire emergency situations. Lots of hate, rumor, hearsay, conjecture, allegations, posts without providing the source, opinions offered that are not based on fact, and even agreeing with people's actions to break the law who are going into closed areas of the National Forest.

So not a community resourse at all and no longer relevant except for buy and sell stuff.

Contrast that to your fire emergency page Ray which has been most helpful in providing factual fire information with links to the source.

Facts matter, especially during an emergency.

@David. I called that one the day before the emergency. You did need help and most likely from some who have been hesitant to receive the vaccine and supported Trump.

Sorry to hear you lost some property and good that you thanked thoses members of our community who helped you during your time of need.

I'm hoping you're starting to understand my point. We're all in this together.

[pasayten]

Not kicked off, but methownet removed my post letting folks know the link to the Fire Info BB thread on this BB... and didn't add it to their "fire info links" page... Can't stand a better source for info!!! Jeesh... lol...

In actuality, the methownet BB is not well suited for the easy dissemination of important information in significant events affecting the community due to its curtailed features found on most bulletin boards... Pictures, pdf files, and offsite links. They may do this to a lack of staff time for moderation during normal times, but I firmly believe in times like this, these features should be turned on.

[Fun CH]

Fraulein57, Also nail on the head with a bit a humor.

As you say, David has gone beyond the simple shaming (his self proclaimed goal) towards "hostility"directed at
other members of our community.

This hostility also seems politically motivated because presumably only Republicans are refusing to be vaccinated. Although Trump received the vaccine even after his life was saved by advances in medical science (an infusion of Regeneron) after he contracted covid 19.

Bruce is also on this same rampage at the MNBB although he's only goes so far as calling people who have concerns about the vaccine as "ignorant".

In this quote from the MNBB, concerning the state of Missouri, he fails to mention that California is also seeing increased cases of Covid 19.

"Today the State requested emergency federal aid to battle the outbreak. So,, the states that have been vaccinated get to pay for the ignorance of the states (like Missouri,Alabama,Utah, Arkansas etc)that did not get vaccinated. Bruce Herron Wolf Creek"

At first I thought that there is some sort of privileged supremacy attitude reflected in his statement. Does he also include the 11% percent black population of Missouri as being ignorant?

A simple scan of the facts would show that many minority communities have not had equitable access to the vaccine. But let's not let facts get in the way of our opinion right?

We all suffer from ignorance at one time or another in our lives but in this case both David and Bruce should perhaps consider the way they treat ordinary people living in our diverse community.

Or perhaps they may want to continue the unfounded divisive rhetoric and check the person's political affiliation and vaccine statis so they have the option to refuse help with any fire or other emergency Services they may require.

[mister_coffee]

The kindest and most generous word in the English language is "look." Or as some people say, you can "do your own research." That doesn't mean forwarding posts from quacks or kooks on Facebook or Instagram, or going down a rabbit hole on Youtube. All of the research papers with respect to COVID are publicly available online and you can go read them and draw your own conclusions. I've read about 40 of them, and there are probably at this point hundreds of times that number.

You can draw some conclusions from those papers, though:

• The vaccines are not just safe, but extraordinarily safe. Reactions serious enough to cause hospitalizations happen in about one in 100,000 people getting vaccinations, and fatal reactions happen in about one in 1,000,000 vaccinations. I say "about" because at those very low rates it is very hard to suss out what was caused by a vaccination and what was not. This is made even more complicated by the fact that we vaccinated older people first, and older people are more likely to die and more likely to go to the hospital than younger people. If you are over sixty your odds of dying on any given day are probably on the order of 1 out of 10,000 -- which makes it very challenging to sort out the signal from the noise.

• The vaccines are not just effective, but extraordinarily so. Right now hundreds of people per day are being hospitalized for COVID in Los Angeles County. The number of people who are vaccinated who are being hospitalized is zero. Source: https://www.deseret.com/coronavirus/202 ... vaccinated

• You could make a "wait-and-see" argument in March or April about whether it was a good idea to take the vaccine. You can't make that argument today because more and better data has came out. Once again, do your research and read some of the papers. I'd also point out that scientific research about the efficacy of a new treatment is seldom as unambiguously positive as it is for the COVID vaccines.

• For reasons we do not yet understand, in the most recent "wave" more younger and healthier people are becoming seriously ill and requiring hospitalization. That shouldn't be surprising since we have done a pretty good job of vaccinating vulnerable people (mostly older and less healthy) so the variants most likely to thrive will seek other hosts.

In the end, nobody is stopping you from being well-informed. If you make that choice for yourself you will have to live (or die) with it.

[fraulein57]

Nail on the head....community shamers. Shame on YOU for disrespecting other people's rights AND privacy.

Are you really so much more enlightened? I don't see evidence of it. Your arguments for vaccinations (which these are not did you know that?) appear based in your own personal fear/anxiety, and propensity toward hostility toward everybody else. Altho you seem to feel self annointed as some kind of authority on the matter.

This is right out of central planning. You are falling right smack into the trap of division. Maybe you mean well but you are not informed enough to convince anyone of much of anything except a certain meanness like suggesting people be given a jab with a dull needle. What the h. is that? But central planners are LOVING IT.

I would like to see you turn a corner. But you will not likely, you are entrenched and even living in yesteryear. It's your right. Stay there but try to stop projecting onto everyone else.

Still I wish you some fun.... form a Stammtisch with only approved shamers or other approved persons, marvel about your viral protection devices, injection sites, the next booster! Have a few latex protected thumb wrestling matches. Petition for a community shamers tax credit! I could actually see it happening. Meanwhile others go on about their daily lives MINDING THEIR OWN BUSINESS vaccinated OR NOT. That's a respectable approach.

[Fun CH]

Yea, but I see you and Bruce as part of the problem. You both are definitely not helping to convince people that being vaccinated is a good idea.

Can't you see that if your goal is trying to convince people to become vaccinated you are not succeeding. That rhetoric just causes people to dig in further.

From my perspective, to use your analogy, you've already ignited the burn pile and now I'm trying to convince you to put your fire out.

[mister_coffee]

Chris, with respect, I've said that we need to agree to disagree.

I do not think I owe very much diplomacy to people who are determined to harm others. I certainly wouldn't show patience or diplomacy to someone who decided to ignite a burn pile today, or to someone who insisted on driving while intoxicated. Choosing not to get vaccinated (again I make an exception for people who cannot because of valid medical reasons) is morally in the same place in my view.

Shame is a powerful tool. Showing opprobrium and disapproval is an effective way to change behavior.

Enough said.

[Fun CH]

@David, will you and Bruce please stop your divisive rhetoric on the MNBB? Obviously the BB staff in many cases will not intervene. Although they did recently get rid of one of Bruce's divisive threads after Judy correctly called people out for their divisive behavior.

Here is a quote by you.

"So those who choose not to get vaccinated are harming me and others through their selfishness, laziness, and ignorance.

This is why I think vaccine refusers should be rounded up, strapped down, and vaccinated with a dull needle" end quote

If the goal is to convince people to become vaccinated, then clearly that divisive rhetoric is not the way to do it.

Many don't know that before I started working in the construction industry to help build this community, I was a Wa. State certified VR counselor. So I do have some informed understanding when I say this type of rhetoric and other misinformation others spew out from the left of center on the MNBB is not helpful.

What exactly is your goal?