Quick community update and reminder

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

It's been great to see so many new posts over the last few weeks, so thank you everyone who's been posting and offering articles to be posted!

Unfortunately, this flurry also seems to have prompted some drama, so I just want to make a couple of reminders:

- As requested in the comm's sticky note, when you do post photos please tick the box on your posting window that says something like "add a link to original image". This will mean that people can click through your image until it's big enough that the words can be read. It's fine to have images that show articles exist, but even better when we can all read the article itself.

- As ci5hq_dnoticed is an archive (as it says in the comm's subtitle), please don't make posts and then delete them. Not only is that basically the exact opposite of archiving, but it's confusing and upsetting for readers.

- This should go without saying, but please don't be rude and/or aggressive to other members of this community (and that includes me, the comm mod). That's not okay.

Re: the drama - as many of you already know, a member of this community, Ali15son, has been posting and deleting those posts and various comments for quite some time now (at least months), and a number of people over that time have either messaged me or commented to ask what was going on with it. I finally decided that I had to say something to her, and so I replied to the most recent query someone else had made about it, to let them know that they were right and posts really shouldn't be deleted from the comm. I then began writing a message to Ali15son to ask her not to delete any more posts or comments that she made here, because it was a Pros archive, and people were confused by it. Before I'd written more than the first couple of sentences, Ali15son jumped on my lj reply to the other person's comment to say "but watch me delete this now."

That's neither a kind nor thoughtful response to a situation - deleting more posts and comments out of apparent spite just isn't necessary in what is supposed to be a friendly community of people enjoying their love of Pros. After further somewhat aggressive responses, I sadly had to make the decision to remove Ali15son's posting access. If lj is still working correctly, this should mean that she can no longer delete things from this community archive, and that is the only reason I felt I had to do this.

You will read allusions elsewhere to this happening, without the full explanation (and people with other grudges joining in to add some extra kicks), which is why I'm telling the story here. Ignoring requests from a comm mod and being rude to them, or anyone else, just won't be tolerated. This is supposed to be a safe space for us all to share Pros memorabilia and love - and, quite honestly, that includes me!

Feel free to ask any questions you need to, but hopefully we can now get back to just enjoying that memorabilia!

Comments

[livejournal.livejournal.com]

Hello! Your entry got to top-25 of the most popular entries in LiveJournal!
Learn more about LiveJournal Ratings in FAQ (https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=303).

[lugiadepression.livejournal.com]

To be frank, when it happened to me and I got my comments deleted when I was merely helpful to correct incorrect details that were being posted—and I know I was neutral/respectful—just felt abusive to me. Erasing other people's existence and comments in any community shouldn't be an option at all, because, as you said, people are being people, and some are not unwilling to use these loopholes to abuse others.

I was also super confused about the continuous unreadable posts because I saw you posting how-to guidelines in comments to her multiple times, just to be ignored. This was not a surprise for me but it's still saddening to witness when people rather choose to stay posh and uppish instead of listening to the helping leads to become a part of a community. I hope nobody will give you a hard time for this—sometimes hard decisions have to be made to stop harmful behaviour. I feel with you.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Erasing other people's existence and comments in any community shouldn't be an option at all
To be fair we do need to erase spam-type posts, but that's perhaps something that mods could be asked to do. There may be reasons to delete things you've posted yourself, but the vast majority of lj users (in Pros, at least) don't seem to see a need to do so. It's certainly not okay to erase people's comments etc. if they were offering help.

rather choose to stay posh and uppish
I think there's perhaps a language disparity here, as I don't think "posh and uppish" is applicable in this case. Someone is "posh" if they come from a wealthy, highly-priviliged background - the Minister in Pros, for instance, or Plum, might be described as "posh". Someone might be described as "uppish" if they're thought to be doing something above "their station". Some people might describe Doyle as "uppish" for reading literary books and going to arty cinema, for instance, when he has a working class background. It's hugely class-system loaded — the idea that we all "have our place", and shouldn't try to "rise above it" (and therefore that "posh" people are better than us). Both words are also a bit name-call-y, and best avoided in discussions! *g*

This seems to be more a situation of obstinately refusing to follow community guidelines, or advice offered by fellow community members. I'm sympathetic if there's an element of not knowing how to do something technological, but I'm not sure that's applicable in this case, and doesn't excuse rudeness anyway.

ETA - sorry, meant to say thanks! Some people will definitely — are already — trying to stir bad feeling among others, which is why I posted here to explain what happened. And some people will jump on that because they take any opportunity to put the boot in to someone who's stood up to them in the past as well. Hopefully most people around here know me better than that though!

[lugiadepression.livejournal.com]

In my opinion only mods should be allowed to delete comments, and that's why most platforms have a 'report spam' function available for all members both for posts and comments, so mods can be alerted about certain about content that might deem further action. Other/further than that, I don't agree the delete comments option available for members, but that might be only me, that's how it built up my experience.

Thank you for explaining the language issue here about my words, I'm always willing and happy to learn or stand corrected when I make a mistake as I'm still a learner of the English language. Hence, in my vocabulary, uppish and posh were rather a label for people refusing to listen to others because they are-, or, they believe that they are owning certain things that puts them above others and that gives them the right to act out, and that was the behaviour I saw in this certain issue that happened. Thanks again for explaining them to me, I'll avoid using these expressions from now like this because name-calling is never okay; so I apologise if it came off like I was aiming for that, which I didn't mean to do. I merely meant to use these words as adjectives for certain behaviour that I witnessed, nothing more.

I saw how many to-do guidelines you left around in comments to help over the technological barrier, so all the kudos to you.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Thanks for not being offended about my questioning your language use, especially because your English is clearly excellent. I meant it to be helpful (because I'd want people to help me like that if I was trying to speak another language — which I woefully can't do beyond a few scattered words). Anyway, I appreciate you taking it that way. *g*

in my vocabulary, uppish and posh were rather a label for people refusing to listen to others because they are-, or, they believe that they are owning certain things that puts them above others and that gives them the right to act out
That makes sense - the things are very closely connected! I'd say that people who might be described as "posh" and/or "uppish" quite often refuse to listen to others because they think that what they own/control makes them superior — but people who aren't at all "posh" or "uppish" might also refuse to listen to others for the same reason. Hopefully that makes sense|! *g*

[lugiadepression.livejournal.com]

I can't and shouldn't be offended when I gets corrected in things I'm not right or clear, and that's including the English language as well. Thank you again to explaining this to me, I didn't mean to be offensive, so it's good that this was brought to my attention.

[lugiadepression.livejournal.com]

Additionally, I hope I don't come off as a bribing person for saying this. It's merely that as a community owner myself I experienced troubles like this many times over, and as a member I also saw communities where mods were the abusive party. I saw how this incident went down and in my opinion you are not at fault, and I hope members here will realise that and not give you a hard time. Incidents like this are hard times enough to deal with.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Lol — no, I don't think you come off as anything other than someone who has been affected by all this, and someone who has watched it all happening. It's a terrible introduction to livejournal, it's really not usually like this! I'd go so far as to say there's not been this sort of drama for a good few years! *g*

[ali15son.livejournal.com]

I am hardly posh and uppish and if people didn't speak down to other people then there wouldb't be a problem and why would i need correcting over something i already own.

[ali15son.livejournal.com]

A word to lugiadepression. What has any of this got to do with you. You have been on lj for 2 minutes so kindly keep your opinions to yourself.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Okay, this needs to stop now. Any and all members of this community are welcome to post their opinions here, as long as they are being polite and rational about them. Not only that, but Lugia commented to me, on a post that I made, and in that post I invited people to ask questions if they wanted to. Lugia is therefore perfectly entitled to comment.

You yourself could be said to have been on lj for 2 minutes compared to the length of time that I myself have been on lj. Longevity on a platform does not imbue any kind of superiority or mean that one person's opinion is more valid than another person's! It may mean that they lack information that someone who's been here longer has, but that is all - and is absolutely irrelevant to this matter.

There is no need to take an aggressive tone with anyone in this community. Please keep your comments polite and calm. If you're not able to do that, and your comments continue to read as aggression to people here, then I will have to remove your ability to comment in this community at all.

[ali15son.livejournal.com]

Don't worry life is too short to be arguing on here.

[hagsrus.livejournal.com]

[agt-spooky.livejournal.com]

[tinturtle]

[ali15son.livejournal.com]

So just let me get this straight, you can all talk about me without me saying anything back is this how this community really works.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Of course you can reply to people, just like anyone else at this comm can — as long as your comments are polite and rational, and do not read as being aggressive to other people, as I said above.

These rules are not just about you, they are for anyone taking part in this community, but that means they do apply to you too.

[ali15son.livejournal.com]

So why you and lugiadepression have been making remarks about me between you as soon as i make a comment mine is deemed aggressive. Don't worry i get the picture.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

We have been talking about the situation in general, we have not been "making remarks about [you]". Note that when Lugia suggested you were "posh and uppish", I called her on it and said that a better way to describe things was ...more a situation of obstinately refusing to follow community guidelines, or advice offered by fellow community members. That's a description of what I had seen happening — it describes the situation.

If you feel that is an unfair description of things, you can of course reply by saying something about why you did/didn't follow the guidelines, or why you deleted advice given to you. That would be a constructive way to talk about things, because it would help everyone understand what happened.

Compare this to:
"Don't worry I get the picture"
"So let me get this straight... [accusation]... is this how this community really works?"
"You have been on lj for 2 minutes so kindly keep your opinions to yourself."
"if people didn't speak down to other people then there wouldb't be a problem"

These are all rather aggressive ways of talking about something — they come across as defensive and cross, and they don't help to clear things up if there might have been miscommunication. For instance, you could have said:

"I feel that you're treating me differently to someone else and I don't think that's fair", with an explanation of the difference.
"I want to be sure that I have understood how this community works", with an explanation of what you see as problematic.
I actually can't think of a polite way of saying the third one above, because it's basically telling someone to shut up (and that''s never okay).
"I feel as if you are talking down to me when you say [quote where you think there was a problem]"

Saying things this way gives information about what you feel went wrong, so that if there's a misunderstanding it can be straightened out. The phrasing you actually used doesn't open or invite any dialogue about what happened, it's just being critical of people/the community.

I hope that helps you see "the picture".

(I am a bit surprised by your comment though — half an hour ago you said that life was too short to be arguing on here, but you seem to have come back to argue.)

[ali15son.livejournal.com]

No i haven't i just wanted to know before i leave this site behind me.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I don't understand this comment — you haven't what? And you wanted to know what?

[ali15son.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to know why i was deemed aggressive when i responded to the both of you talking about me before i leave your archive site.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Oh I see - well then I hope you understood my reply above. In short, it was the way you responded.

[ali15son.livejournal.com]

Right.

[macklingirl.livejournal.com]

It would be nice if you, as a mod of this community, would ask Luigia to stop the hidden accusations in her posts. The hints "Clearer version", or "Here is a readable version" and now most recently "As a replacement for the deleted post" are one of the reasons for the bad mood in this community. Why can't she just post without such notices?

For us as members of the community, the only important information is actually the following from which magazine does the article come and when is it from. We really don't need any needling from one person against another. My opinion.

[lugiadepression.livejournal.com]

You can just ask me, I won't bite anyone's head off. And I'd like to answer this by explaining my side: I joined this community with excitement when I discovered that there is a pros archive. But blurred posts became more frequent after my joining, and I kept getting literal headaches from trying to make sense of the blurry mass on the pages, which just made me discouraged to open new posts further on, thinking about the high chances that those were probably also not readable, so I thought why to bother.

Maybe others haven't experienced this discouragement that I did, I only talked about it with visitors who aren't members of this co, maybe it is just me that I had too much expectations, possibly, but for me it's beyond my comprehension the point of an archive, and I mean any kind of archive and not just this pros, where the shared content isn't readable. (And let me clear it up before anything else, those posts weren't made to search for articles in place of damaged ones, which would be totally understandable, but those posts were made for show-off purpose).

But anyway, as I got discouraged I thought it wasn't impossible that I wasn't the only one who started to give up on posts here, so when I started to make posts here I wanted to make it absolutely clear at first sight that those things are readable as per the community rules, that you can bother with those posts because there won't be any disappointment—the posts I made were not a cat in the bag game.

I'm sorry if someone took my state notes of the 'clear/readable' onto themselves, but I came from places where it's expected to follow rules and guidelines, and I wasn't the one deviating from them, so I didn't see anything wrong with stating in my posts that what I posted was worth the time to look at.

(And no, I would never mock or jab anyone who's having trouble with technology, the blurred posts weren't blurred because of technology barriers, or because there weren't a sharp version on hand, because then Byslantedlight wouldn't have had to post how-to-post tutorials so many times in comments only to be left ignored.—You can scroll back to count them all if you want.—In my view when someone wants to correct their errors, they listen and ask, and don't repeat the problem again and again while ignoring helping messages, which just happened. Even I would've loved to help, because I love sharing knowledge and any type of things starting from food to clothes and ideas and all, but you can speak to a person who's not willing to listen only for a certain while. That's all about my 'clear/readable' labels.

This poster post I made recently wasn't my idea, nor my content, nor did I worded it except for the special thanks part, which is a constant presence when I post content that's not from 'my possession'. So you're banging on the wrong door, but I personally don't think it's polite to bang on any door regarding of this post which was born out of kindness towards the co. members, to share the lost content with you again. And yes, I'm 100% support the idea of this post being shared again, and furthermore to re-share every deleted content because I, personally, would love every pros fan to access every pros content. Very foolish of me.

I didn't see you, or other people having a problem when others babbled (I'm saying this affectionately) in the posts they made beyond adding the requested details. You just said you only need the details in the posts, but I didn't see you making comments about it on other posts, so I didn't think a few extra words would matter, especially because several posts didn't even contain content (an article) that we could've read.

[macklingirl.livejournal.com]

I asked byslantedlight because she said in her mod post that we should contact her if we have a question. And my question was just whether she could stop these hints. Because yes, I find it questionable whether such a reference is necessary just because you may have seen the article somewhere in a form that is not easy to read. But that's just my personal opinion (which is what I said). The fact that your name appears in it is simply because I have noticed these hints in your posts but never before.

As for your statement that I haven't noticed it in other posts, I can only say that I haven't noticed it in other posts or comments. But I haven't gone through all the posts yet either, so I can't say anything more about that. If I notice it somewhere, I'll say something there too.

I apologize if you misunderstood. As I said, it came across to me that way, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you meant it that way. It is a purely personal feeling that I have passed on here.

[lugiadepression.livejournal.com]

I don't think I misunderstood, but thanks for the reply.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

As mod of this community, I'm not seeing hidden accusations in any of the phrases you've quoted above. They're just descriptions of why a further post has been made which might seem to be repeating an earlier one. They may therefore be useful information for people who are wondering.

There are three important things for people to do when posting in this community, and they're all in the sticky post at the top of the comm, where people are asked to follow these guidelines when possible:
"- include information about the source of your image/article etc whenever possible. If unknown, please say that instead.
- include the date of the original image/article as specifically as possible. If unknown, please say that instead.
- tick the "Add a link to fullsize picture" option so that people can click the image to make it bigger."

I appreciate that you might only want the source and date for an article, but I and multiple other people who have asked me about it, not just recently but now and then over the last year or so, would also like to be able to read the words in an article. Pictures are great, but many of us are also interested in reading the information.

As mod I will speak to anyone who I see making "hidden accusations" or any other impolite comments, but I'm not seeing them in the phrases you offer above.

[macklingirl.livejournal.com]

Like I said in my comment, it is only my personal feeling. You said we should ask if there is something and I asked. That's all.

But for me, it is a difference if I say "Click the images for a bigger image and readable text" or if I say "clearer version". The first phrase tells me, that I can see the full image when I click on the image. The second tells me, there is a non-readable, unclearer version somewhere.

But be it like it is, I apologize if I was wrong. Won't happen again (at least not in this community).

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

You're definitely welcome to ask anything, just like everyone is!

In this particular case I think two things:

- Your first and second interpretations of the phrases you give seem accurate to me.

- The second phrase and interpretation ("clearer version") are, however, applicable in this case without any rudeness being read from them. The fact is that posts have been made to this community where the writing isn't clear because there was no link to a full size/higher resolution image. Those posts will have been tagged with the date for people to find again if they want to. If they click on those tags and find both an unclear smaller image and then what seems to be a repeat of that image, they can see that the difference is the second one being "clearer" because you can click through to a larger size. That description of something being "clearer" is therefore relevant and useful in the community in this case, because it's giving context and extra information, even in just one word.

So that's my interpretation of all that as the mod. Hopefully it makes sense, and we can go back to using the community for what it was meant for — archiving stuff about the show we all love!

[lugiadepression.livejournal.com]

On a sidenote, I honestly don't know if I should feel offended or magically glorified about this pointing of yours that I, what, alone managed to ruin a four years old community in a week or two with a handful of posts of which even all held a thank you sidenote to the unknown sources... I'll ponder about this today.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

You commented in reply to Macklingirl just before I did - thank you for giving your side of the situation, and doing so as an explanation.

That said, your sidenote veers towards the "needling" that Macklingirl mentioned, and while I understand what you're saying I don't think it was really necessary when I keep appealing for people to keep things calm and impersonal!

[lugiadepression.livejournal.com]

I hear you, but I don't get misgendered and also accused of ruining a community on any random day, and I felt it was kinda offensive. Here, now I figured it out I guess. I'll leave it to you then.

[lugiadepression.livejournal.com]

If it's any consolation, I sent it before I saw your reply. *insert Doyle's oops face*

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

No worries, I saw the timestamp and realised it was a simultaneous posting. We can't write and read at the same time on lj!

[macklingirl.livejournal.com]

Sorry if I used an impolite term with the word "needling". I should have used "taunted" or "tantalised" or any other term for the German word "Stichelei".

I apologize for not being a native speaker.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

I think you know that you don't need to apologise for not being a native-English speaker!

[macklingirl.livejournal.com]

I wasn't sure.

[macklingirl.livejournal.com]

I didn't say anything like that and I didn't mean anything like that. I never said anything about you ruining the community.

[lugiadepression.livejournal.com]

Saying that information which I added in my posts are/were the reason, partly or not, for the bad mood* in this community, is saying the good mood was ruined by me, partly or not.

And my user ID is clearly not "Luigia", this name is very oddly, I dare to say disrespectfully chosen by you when my username was just a few comments up, very easy and on front to copy/paste. The same goes about using assumed, and wrong gender in my case, which is also really impolite to do so.

[macklingirl.livejournal.com]

Sorry for using the wrong term. Maybe it is better when I write my answer in German so you can translate it.

I meant "Ich finde diese Sticheleien überflüssig und sie sollten bitte unterlassen werden."

[lugiadepression.livejournal.com]

After you expressed your personal opinion and personal feelings about informative labels being used in posts such as "readable/clear version", and alike, it was explained to you multiple times that there were no taunts in them aiming towards anyone, nor in the poster posts wording, which wasn't even worded by me by the way—not like it matters anyway. But all in all, these bits, or labels, say the same: information, and nothing else. Nobody is out to get anyone's neck, not me, not others I saw in this community.

I hope this small summary/repeat of the previous replies you got helps to clear this up to you for once and all.

If anyone fell in a bad mood, as you said it happened, because of the information I added in posts, they should've reached out and ask about it instead of staying in a bad mood and keep growing their accusations that anyone, or me, are out to get them by that way: I assume byslantedlight is happy to explain things—or take action if it's needed—, and so do I if it's a concern about my wording.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Okay, I think there have been alot of misinterpretations and misunderstandings this weekend, and alot of instances where people have taken things personally rather than seeing them in a wider context.

There aren't many of them, but the community posting guidelines are stuck right at the top of the comm, and I thought that all I had to do was ask people to kindly follow them. I did not think I had to ask people to treat this community and each other with understanding and tolerance - I had hoped that came naturally. Maybe the state of today's world generally suggests that I was being overly-optimistic, but I want to think that we can be better than this - better than that.

I'm going to close comments to this entry now that everyone has had a chance to reply to each other, and I'm going to ask people to take a deep breath and count to ten if they are tempted to try and carry this on elsewhere. If you want to complain further, please send a private message to me, and we can talk about things.