I hope to see many of you on the prostate cancer forum that I am moving to:
(url removed - 142)
Because of the new moderator, Pratoman, I no longer feel safe on Healingwell. He arbitrarily erases my posts - some of which I have put a great deal of time, thought, and effort into. I don't want to get into a fight when I post here - civil disagreements about
therapies are fine with me, fights with moderators over posts are not fine with me. Pratoman is, by his own admission, high strung - what I didn't know was that he is a control freak as well. He also blatantly lied to me - he said he would email me if he thought that a post should be deleted. He then deleted my very next 300-word post without an alert
. He is temperamentally unsuited to the task. I don't know why he chose me as his victim - perhaps because I am the most visible member and he wanted to make his mark. I asked him to resign - he refused - so I am leaving.
I take this step after much thought and with great sadness. I put a lot of time and effort into this site, and made many friends here. I am hopeful that my friends will join me on the other site. The moderator/administrator there, Darryl, is more laid back (like PDA and Tudpock), hardly ever deletes posts, has few rules, and is incredibly supportive. I feel at home there.
I have suggested some changes that I hope the moderators will adopt. The goal is to make their actions less arbitrary and subject to personal whim. I include them below, FYI:
(1) Inform posters via email if possible that their post is in danger of being edited, and give them a chance to fix them first.
(2) Lock threads when they become only full of meta-posts and they are no longer about
the OP's subject
(3) Strictly enforce a no
ad hominems policy. The rule that talks about
"respect" calls for interpretation of a a very subjective term.
Ad hominems, on the other hand, are objective (e.g., "Jane, you stupid c***..."). Sometimes, though, they are hidden in subtext or as passive-aggressive satements, which may require some discernment. A good clue is if the post is meta.
(4) Sometimes, moderators may want to rush in quickly to stop a flame war, and don't have time to trade emails with posters. They can accomplish this by adopting a policy of putting a temporary lock on a thread that raises a red flag (especially posts using ad hominems and meta-posts). That will give adequate time to discuss it behind the scenes and come to a consensus. A moderator can contact the offending poster and give him a chance to provide an altered post in an email, and go through as many iterations as needed to achieve agreement. It will also give posters a time-out to cool down. There are few threads on HW where a delay of a day or so will be a problem.
(5) Require a majority of moderators to agree to lock a thread. This will require an odd number of moderators.
I am not erasing my account - that would deprive people of all my past posts, which may be useful. I am also leaving my email up - feel free to contact me.
Post Edited By Moderator (142) : 9/11/2018 4:50:12 PM (GMT-6)