Trying to figure out this forum....

[MasterInstructor]

Hi All

I am trying to understand the attitude and actions of some of the Directing Staff and some users with thousands of posts and a lot of contribution to this forum.

Some of the practises I see just blow my mind away.

More than %50 of the posts must be telling new people to use the search function. Each and every situation is different, yes some information might be there using the search function I agree but still. People should not waste their time if they are not going to help anybody. If you are just going to write " use the search function" why bother to reply?

Locked threads is also very common... Look at below...

CBAtt- The only reason I'm not going to lock this is so that you can tell me how you know, and what you did to facilitate, that your record from barely 2 years ago is "clean". 
Until then, you are on a very short leash here.
Bruce.
Staff

Answered and locked, before we end up with yet another long thread on a common subject.
Milnet.ca Staff

What I don't get is, purpose of a forum is to discuss, share information, learn from each other, yet here staff bans people, locks threads... Internet is a place for freedom. There is a lot new people to Canadian Forces who write here that do not know how things work and do not have experience. I think users of this Forum discourage people from joining with their attitude. I am glad staff at Recruitments centres are much more professional and helpful. Forums should respect that and some users here do as well. I had great responses to some of my posts. Specially FDO has been very helpful.

I posted this thread on a appropriate section of the forum. It said comments about the forum. I am curious to see what will happen to this thread or my Account? Good thing is I can still read the forum without logging in and I do not have a static IP!

Thanks

 

[Michael OLeary]

You're right, we should spend hours of our voluntary time answering the same questions over and over again.  In fact, we should just throw away the search function and not expect people to learn to do anything for themselves.

Perhaps you've also read all of the posts by staff trying to manage the tone and content of the forums, to encourage members to be helpful and to ask then to pitch in instead of just complaining about how the staff do things.  Stick around for a few years, and then tell me what your first reaction is to the fiftieth post you see made by a new member immediately after joining asking if they can join the infantry with only Grade 10.

Please, we work hard to manage these forums, and we have certainly learned that we cannot make everyone happy all the time.

 

[xo31@711ret]

The only reason I'm not going to lock this is so that you can tell me how you know, and what you did to facilitate, that your record from barely 2 years ago is "clean". 
Until then, you are on a very short leash here.
Bruce.
Staff

There was probably a very good reason for this reply, but I was too was taken back and somewhat confused by this reply...

 

[Michael OLeary]

There was probably a very good reason for this reply, but I was too was taken back and somewhat confused by this reply...

If you go back and review that thread, you will realize that Bruce has experience in the Correctional Services and the posters statement did not make sense to him, a point that many of us would have missed by not having relevant experience.

 

[MasterInstructor]

There might be good reasons, reasons that I might even imagine about. It is the attitude I am talking about... I do not see any desire to help, provide information, any effort to be friendly and welcoming. Yet these people spend hours on this forum and put a lot of  effort in to it. Again, I am talking about some replies not everybody or every staff.

 

[Michael OLeary]

Such is life in any human endeavour.  If you can figure out a foolproof solution, I am sure the forum owner would love to hear your suggestions.

 

[MasterInstructor]

You're right, we should spend hours of our voluntary time answering the same questions over and over again.  In fact, we should just throw away the search function and not expect people to learn to do anything for themselves.

Perhaps you've also read all of the posts by staff trying to manage the tone and content of the forums, to encourage members to be helpful and to ask then to pitch in instead of just complaining about how the staff do things.  Stick around for a few years, and then tell me what your first reaction is to the fiftieth post you see made by a new member immediately after joining asking if they can join the infantry with only Grade 10.

Please, we work hard to manage these forums, and we have certainly learned that we cannot make everyone happy all the time.

Thanks for your answer! As you can see I am new as well. And there are things I need to learn as well...

 

[the 48th regulator]

There might be good reasons, reasons that I might even imagine about. It is the attitude I am talking about... I do not see any desire to help, provide information, any effort to be friendly and welcoming. Yet these people spend hours on this forum and put a lot of  effort in to it. Again, I am talking about some replies not everybody or every staff.

So let me understand this;

These people spend hours on this forum and put a lot of  effort in to it.

Yet in all the hours of work the members have put into this, of which you have observed, you notice no effort made by the staff?

How about all of the bumbling fools that constantly create dual accounts, contrary to the guidlines.  Do you even know how much effort that takes to clean up?

Ah well, I will retire to bedlham, the Saviour has arrived to clean up this one horse town......


dileas

tess

 

[Michael OLeary]

We've had suggestions before that we can be heavy-handed, and when that happens we try to correct our internal systems. It's also been claimed that we limit "free speech" - yup we do, when it can lead to lawsuits against the owner that will take Milnet.ca off the internet (because the "free speechers" don't write cheques to site owners' lawyers). We also shut down hate (racist, sexist, etc.) postings and make it clear to people that it's not a "free" site (none of the internet is) - someone pays for this space on the internet - even if the complainant doesn't.

But in the end we're pretty happy that some people do come back around and thank us for helping them, and for putting up with their crappy attitudes when they first joined and not banning them when they were asking dumb repetitive questions.  And we're proud that we're not rabble.ca, 4chan/b/, or the comment sections of cbc.ca - "free speech" is online anarchy where no organization evolves and no-one actually learns anything new.

It's a hard balance and we do the best we can with what we've got.

 

[leroi]

MasterInstructor,

I think this is one of the better moderated forums and it's the reason I stuck around. The Moderators here give everyone a fair chance to (im) prove themselves.

I've also seen the same questions being asked over and over again and it's usually the same people who go to the trouble of answering them over and over again.

Check out some other forums & do a comparison. I find they either stagnate form inertia or the Moderators are tyrants.  I belonged to one for a short time that did mass bannings without any rhyme or reason. People with good posting histories would try to log in and suddenly find they had been banned for life with no explanation. Plus the administration would daily remove posts and tweak and manipulate information to the point that the discussion couldn't be followed due to lack of logical flow and coherence. I also began to wonder what the real game was with the site in question because it seemed the way they purged information was a deliberate attempt to bias it.

The site I'm referring to also banned members for life if they de-activated their account and regularly told members they couldn't belong to any other forums. They had no graduated warning system in place and few clear rules.

There is a lot to learn here at Milnet. I hope you'll read for awhile before you pre-judge.  Give it a chance and then become a member.