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An Appeal for Calm - To Everyone

Posted by (Edmonds, WA, USA) on

Hey everyone,

While there are obviously hundreds of positive threads actively being discussed in our forum, and lots of great travel advice is being shared, there has been an unusual volume of reports about others' behavior recently. Maybe it's the heat, but consider this an appeal to everyone for calm and patience with one another. I am far from referring to any one individual here. I've done a lot this week to contact folks and work with them so that we can get back to normal.

Thanks in advance to everyone for their help regarding the following to help make this forum the best place it can be.

  1. Please avoid publicly commenting on any drama, perceived slight, or any other issue you've found. If you take issue with something someone said, do not respond. Commenting or responding only extends that drama and leads to more that must be moderated. This is Guideline #4, and it is consistently violated by even some of our best contributors. Use the Report system only, please. We read and respond to every report, and we thank you for your patience and trust in handling any reported issues.
  2. On a related note, please avoid being the one to remind people of any rules or expectations. Aside from side-tracking discussions, when such reminders do not come from a moderator, this almost always is received with an attitude of "who are you to tell me X or Y" and it just creates a bigger mess for moderators. We need to be the ones to handle it (privately!) to avoid extending any issues. Yes, I wish we could all be adults and resolve things ourselves, but that's not how online forums work due to the inherent anonymity behind accounts. It is actually less work for moderators to just handle it for you before it becomes something else.
  3. Please be extra patient with the OP, especially new members. This is always a bit of a thing in this forum given the Q&A format. Some folks are losing their patience, and it sends the tone off the rails quickly.
  4. While we support differing opinions and advice in this forum, we do not support any attempt by someone to try and be more correct than others. This forum accepts that there will be inaccurate advice. Engaging in who's advice is better (or negatively referring to someone else's advice) only leads to arguments, detracts from the good advice given, and drives people away from using this forum (seriously). What matters is that we provide our own good advice, and let the OP and others reading along make the right choices for themselves. We trust that the best advice will shine through.
  5. As Abraham Lincoln once said (in a goofy movie), be excellent to each other!

I'll allow comments on this thread for now, but please keep it positive. This thread is not an invitation for any complaints you might have, as doing so would rather miss the point of 1 and 2 above. While I don't wish to be inundated, please PM me for any specific comments, and Reports are best for moderation so that we can be dealing with specifics.

Thanks again to everyone for keeping these things in mind. This is a great place for talking travel, and I hope overall you're all enjoying the forum.

Happy travels!

Posted by
6408 posts

Dear Webmaster, thank you for the link to Bill and Ted's movie! I think that I echo most people's opinions here when I say that you are the rock that holds us all together. Thank you for your patience and understanding. Hopefully we can continue to be excellent to each other. 😊

Posted by
15090 posts

A question that has come up.....when there is obvious spam on the forum, and we report it to you, should we alert others that we reported it or just leave it alone.

I'm mostly concerned on some travel oriented ones where someone new to travel may fall for it.

Posted by
931 posts

Hey Frank, that has come up a few times. If the spam is the first post (the OP), and it's very obvious spam (and not possibly a legit post, because some of the worst violations happen when that assessment is wrong -- it happens a few times a year and it's awful), I'm OK with a reply pointing out the spam for the sake of those who may not recognize it... only because when we nuke the thread the reply will also disappear.

When the spam is a reply in an existing thread, I'd rather there not be a reply. This is because when the spammer is banned and all their posts removed (a single button on my end), it leaves behind that reply, and it's weird.

Also, thanks Allan. ;)

Posted by
9617 posts

Thank you Andrew (if you are still Andrew !).

Bon weekend.

Posted by
17998 posts

we do not support any attempt by someone to try and be more correct
than others

The only time a response can be “correct” or “incorrect” is if it states the departure time of a flight. Everything else is pure subjectivity and guess based on personal experience and a lot of bias.

A simple question will be seen in totally different ways by 1) someone who visited once for a day, 2) someone who maybe returned a few times, and 3) someone who lives there. And all three answers, even if different, can be equally correct, but in different contexts (and that adds a lot of value to the thread).

Even then, when answering, unless you have some intimate knowledge of the person who asked the question there is really no way of knowing if the answer you are giving is truly applicable to what their interests and style require or appreciate.

The point, the more answers from more people the better. The person asking the question will end up with a great resource to sift through. The concept that TA uses of “Destination Experts” is horribly flawed so let’s not succumb to the same sort of thinking here.

Posted by
10235 posts

Webmaster (Andrew?), thank you so much for making this forum such a wonderful resource for people to ask questions and look for assistance for their trips. And much appreciation goes to the people who respond to the questions.

Thank you for the clarification regarding spam type posts.

Posted by
2252 posts

Thank you, Webmaster and thanks to all the replies here, too.

Posted by
32821 posts

When the spam is a reply in an existing thread, I'd rather there not be a reply. This is because when the spammer is banned and all their posts removed (a single button on my end), it leaves behind that reply, and it's weird.

Thanks very much for that clarification, Webmaster (Andrew?). It helps me clarify what I will do. I try very hard not to comment on new 1-post obvious spam so that the comments don't keep it on the top page - if we ignore it and report it it will quickly drop out of view and then get zapped.

When we had much lighter flow of posts I used to be able to read them all - no more - and when I saw a dangerous post on an existing thread I would post a warning and then when the post had been zapped I went back and "cleaned up" my own mess so there was none of what Webmaster describes as the weird reply. I don't have time for that now so those weird orphans would remain.

Maybe if we were to leave an in-post warning if needed we could make a firm commitment to go back and remove our own post as good housekeeping?

Posted by
6305 posts

Since our webmaster referred to the Guidelines above, I thought it might be helpful to post a link to them. Yes, the link is right there on the Forum page, but it probably wouldn't hurt any of us to go back and reread them once a week or so, especially here lately when many of us are reacting to comments with "Oh, yeah???"

https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/community-guidelines

And I add my thanks to you, Webmaster, for the wonderful job you do. Herding cats can't be easy, although I suspect it is occasionally entertaining.

Thank you.

Posted by
931 posts

Mister E hits on something that I tend to say quite often in moderation. We intend for this forum to have a variety of answers/opinions/advice so that the OP -- and the many (sometimes hundreds) others reading along -- can make the best choice for themselves. Even in the presence of "wrong" information, it's best to not refer to it and simply post your best advice. We trust that the OP and readers will make the right choices for themselves as the best info for them will shine through. Any amount of arguing shifts the focus away from getting advice toward reading online drama, and that's when our forum fails to serve its purpose. Hence why we as moderators only moderate for behavior, not content*.

*The exception, as most of you have figured out, is if that content would lead someone to break the law (guideline #7) or can cause physical harm. That would be any health-related advice. Basically the only appropriate answer to a health question in an online forum is "consult your doctor."

Yep, this is still Andrew. Overseeing the forum has been part of my responsibilities for 15 years now. I have two excellent helpers these days, too. Thank you for some of the kind words here.

Posted by
931 posts

For the sake of clarity, since many of the comments have been about how to handle spam, my OP really isn't about spam. It's about how to react to behaviors so that our forum can succeed in its stated purpose.

"Maybe if we were to leave an in-post warning if needed we could make a firm commitment to go back and remove our own post as good housekeeping?"

I suppose you could Report your own spam-warning post. We'll know not to ban you for it. ;) If we know right where it is (with a Report), we can zap it quickly. Without that, it's just not reasonable for us to review every post that is given after all spam posts to see if someone referred to it.

Posted by
931 posts

Not something I want others doing in this forum, but I'm bumping this thread. We still need a bit more attention on the issues I've raised. Thanks all.

This topic has been automatically closed due to a period of inactivity.