[beholder3]

I can't tell you exactly the difference between organic thread drift and true hijacking, but I know it when I read it. Organic thread drift is good, hijacking is bad.

A consensual drift is ok. And it is not hard to get a feel about the question if a majority is fine with that.

"Hijacking" usually is driven by 1-3 users maximum and in 100% driven by narcissm and, ahem, [insert politically correct word for whining].

Feel free to show five threads that were "hijacked" by someone insisting on a cheerful opinion.

95% of cases I know are about positive topic in the beginning and then someone with psycho issues wading in and complaining about something "because criticism must be allowed" / "I must be able to voice my concerns" and then wallowing in it, making unsubstantiated claims, extending, overgeneralizing etc.
It usually is Eeyore.

[Pentax Syntax]

All reasonable requests Adam. I usually try to ignore the negative posts altogether. I suppose I belong to the old school; if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all.

[Parallax]

By the way, any camera on this world without UHS-VII card slots is inacceptable low end to everyone and never a flagship. If you do not agree, I will explain why, again. And again.

BINGO!
That is the very essence of the difference between the perfectly acceptable expressing of a dissenting or unpopular opinion, and hijacking/trolling.
Those of you who have been following closely probably noticed that we had (note the past tense ) an incidence of that in this very thread.

[Vendee]

I guess I'm lucky in that my Pentax collection is exclusively older film bodies and lenses so I only inhabit a handful of the Pentax forums appropriate to film era gear and film processing. Within that limited range of forums, I cannot recall any bad behaviour and haven't noticed any moderation, probably because it has not been needed........ which is nice.

[normhead]

All reasonable requests Adam. I usually try to ignore the negative posts altogether. I suppose I belong to the old school; if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all.

My old school training was a little different. Speak the truth, be prepared to pay the price for it.

[luftfluss]

Some people seem to have difficulty making a determination between truth and their opinion.

[BigMackCam]

My old school training was a little different. Speak the truth, be prepared to pay the price for it.

Speaking one's "perceived truth", or speaking one's "mind", can cut through the noise and get to the nub of an issue. If all participants in a discussion are of a similar disposition, or if everyone is in the same physical place, talking face-to-face over a beverage of their choice (mine is good wine or very cold beer ), it's easy to read the usually-positive (or, sometimes, humour-tinged) intent in someone who voices their views and opinions a little too directly. The problem with any web forum, though - especially one with so many varied members as this - is that such directness often comes across as aggression, dismissiveness, bullying or similar - and that affects every member, because it detracts from the reputation of the forums.

You and I have had our moments over the years, Norm... but we remain, I believe, on good terms, because I've usually valued the core content of your posts, even if we've sometimes disagreed about the method of presentation. But not everyone sees the positive side.

We're all, I think, capable of getting frustrated or fired up (me too), and a handful of members here seem more capable than others of generating these emotions in us. But if we all dial it back a bit - if we're all mindful of how our posts and responses might be perceived (no member should want to offend another, right?) and set an example, then - ultimately - we'll all benefit

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Last edited by BigMackCam; 07-07-2020 at 02:01 PM.

[normhead]

Speaking one's "perceived truth", or speaking one's "mind", can cut through the noise and get to the nub of an issue. If all participants in a discussion are of a similar disposition, or if everyone is in the same physical place, talking face-to-face over a beverage of their choice (mine is good wine or very cold beer ), it's easy to read the usually-positive (or, sometimes, humour-tinged) intent in someone who voices their views and opinions a little too directly. The problem with any web forum, though - especially one with so many varied members as this - is that such directness often comes across as aggression, dismissiveness, bullying or similar - and that affects every member, because it detracts from the reputation of the forums.

You and I have had our moments over the years, Norm... but we remain, I believe, on good terms, because I've usually valued the core content of your posts, even if we've sometimes disagreed about the method of presentation. But not everyone sees the positive side.

We're all, I think, capable of getting frustrated or fired up (me too), and a handful of members here seem more capable than others of generating these emotions in us. But if we all dial it back a bit - if we're all mindful of how our posts and responses might be perceived (no member should want to offend another, right?) and set an example, then - ultimately - we'll all benefit

All good, but I'd also be remiss in failing to point out how much I've learned because I've been challenged. You get frustrated, you go and find information on line, you change your perspective a bit. IN some cases I've learned the most from the people who were stubborn when they had a point. It needs to be easier for the mods for sure, these aren't paid positions and we'd still want to make thier lives easier even if they were. But as with all things, it's those who put the effort in, who can question "Am I really on the right track here?", who learn the most.

But, dialing it back a bit is always a good thing. It makes you easier to read, easier to understand, and more likely to have an impact. My own heroes are those individuals who can stick to a point and carry on even keel in the face of adversity. However, I've never been able to emulate their behaviour. I think it's because I don't smoke a pipe. The best examples I can think of from my life were pipe smokers. They listen to an inflammatory statement, then a long inhale, then a long exhale, then continue on with an even keel.

[kwb]

Adam, mods, thank you very much for your continued effort to make PF a useful AND pleasant place to hang around for all users! I have two comments.

1. I have to say I really like Welcome & Forum Rules - PentaxForums.com. It's a well designed set of community guidelines, and I'm happy to learn that you're not going to add new regulations, judging from Adam's first post.

2. How about allowing users to flag posts for various pre-defined reasons (we could start by having just "unfriendly" and "off topic"), or to oppose an existing flag which is also considered a form of flagging, with a limited frequency? Let's say one cannot flag anything for 24 hours after flagging something even if one tries to do it in a different thread. This is a variation of down-mod, but is completely separate from Like, with a limited frequency per person and with a limited scope explicitly specifying a reason from a limited set.

Resulting data could be used in many ways, for example mods could be alerted about the cumulative "off-topic" points of all posts made in the past 24 hours in a thread as a measure of outbursts of concerns. Once a threshold of e.g. 15 points or whatever is reached, mods could post something like "There are at least 15 more people who think that some posts in the past 24 hours were off topic than those who think otherwise. Mods will kindly remind people to get back to the original topic even though sometimes it's fun and useful to diverge. If necessary, useful discussions could be made in a separate thread.". This could be automated if desired though some might still want to hear from mods than bots.

Limited frequency is of course to limit the impact of abusing it to suppress an opinion or a user that one doesn't like.

Something like this might be useful for two reasons.

First, with a quantitative guideline (e.g. 15 flags for the posts made in the past 24 hours) mods don't have to spend time wondering and discussing "well this might get worse, should we intervene now?" and "this is off topic but might be OK, what do you think?" for mundane things, offloading a part of the judgment to the users. If it matters they could flag, OTOH if not enough users flag, the thread goes on without intervention. Thus moderators can spend more time on important issues that need more human considerations.

Second, this is not a complaint nor a request for disciplinary action ("user A violated the rules please do something" etc.) but just a request for a friendly reminder so users might flag more and earlier than they report now (I've never reported anything before, sorry), which might result in a timelier intervention.

This is not a new regulation as this doesn't change the administrative action (unfortunately mods have had to remind people that they need to stay friendly and whatnot in the past).

[micromacro]

Hey Mike, speaking as a member, and not as a moderator, I feel a thumbs down button might cause more disruption than might otherwise occur without one.
" Likes " are traceable to the member that gave it, and they also reward the recipient for being positive.................usually. Likes for negative posts are rare.
If " Dislikes " are also traceable to the giver, it becomes personal. I foresee much tit-for-tatting with regards to a dislike button.
Also, some members might not mind racking up 10 Dislikes for a post..............................just sayin'............

I was a member of one forum, when it was disagree button, and technically it also served as dislike button. I know for sure some people disliked every post of the person they did not like for some reasons. Basically no matter what the post was about, it was kind of bullying with dislikes.

[Unregistered User 8]

I was a member of one forum, when it was disagree button, and technically it also served as dislike button. I know for sure some people disliked every post of the person they did not like for some reasons. Basically no matter what the post was about, it was kind of bullying with dislikes.

Hi Lana, yes, a " Dislike " button could very easily be abused here.................................

[Kunzite]

Hi Lana, yes, a " Dislike " button could very easily be abused here.................................

They had something like that on the DPR for a while. Regardless what I posted - a to the point answer to a technical question, or a strong disagreement on the typical subjects - I would get about the same "dislikes"; obviously, from the same people.

I believe that we'd do better here, particularly since Likes are - and Dislikes would be - not anonymous.
But, I still don't think it would be a good idea.

[Rondec]

By the way, any camera on this world without UHS-VII card slots is inacceptable low end to everyone and never a flagship. If you do not agree, I will explain why, again. And again.

I am sure that at least half the posts on one of the K-new threads were about whether there was a tilt screen, what a tiny notch was at the bottom and whether it actually existed or was an optical delusion.

At the same time, if we all just gave our opinion once or at the most twice and then stopped, there would be some threads that would die after only a few pages (not that that would be a bad thing).

[beholder3]

At the same time, if we all just gave our opinion once or at the most twice and then stopped, there would be some threads that would die after only a few pages (not that that would be a bad thing).

I actually believe this would be a helpful forum rule (no more than 2x to 3x making the same claims) which would enhance a lot, simple as it is.

It would combine well with an approach where someone who has stated his opinion these 2x to 3x in thread A already, we do not need to read the same in ten other recent threads (of the last month or so).

Just thinking of how many LENS threads got filled with people bombing home their message "this lens is worthless if I do net get my personal wishlist body" (and vice versa).

[csa]

I actually believe this would be a helpful forum rule (no more than 2x to 3x making the same claims) which would enhance a lot, simple as it is.

How would this rule be enforced? Moderators would have to go thru the threads & count those; which for volunteers with real lives, would be a much added burden.

Of course, if someone wanted to step up to become a Mod, to do the counting...........