Expecting Rain

I read that, too. I didn't interpret that as anyone being held unaccountable. Still dont.

Right, mods are accountable to the owner, and if a user has a complaint about a mod it should be addressed to the owner.

I support 3LM's plan.

I have some suggestions/questions re Madcow's Terms of Use.

In theopening paragraph, I suggest replacing "a serious website" with "a reliable Bob Dylan music and information resource and a welcoming place to be for all Dylan fans, old and new.

Re the second paragraph-there's a dilemma in that many of Bob Dylan's fans are fascinated by discussing what is known about his life and fantasizing about what is not known. Bob Dylan would not like any discussion of his personal life or family by fans but as a public figure, speculation and rumor are part of his life. Discussion of his former wives or lovers, would never be acceptable or respectful at tea with Mr. Dylan. As a benchmark, tea with Dylan doesn't seem quite fair. I can't offer another one to replace it. Obviously, threats against him or his family is against the terms and would be reported to the appropriate law enforcement agencies. I would appreciate reevaluation here.

$2.5 & $2.7 - These two points are unclear to me and just may be another area where the mods determination will rule.

The last paragraph: I would add to the parenthetical statement at the end a qualifier "...pouring fuel on a fire which in the Mod's opinion is or would lead to abuse of the terms.)

The main point that has to be accepted is decisions are subjective and hopefully objective but unequivocal (unless administrator decision overrules).

As many already know I am troubled by the recent events.
And I will always be in favour of another chance for the banned posters.

However, I trust 3LM that he will turn ER into a great place again.

Which means: I support him.

No swearing at all? One of the things I always admired about this forum was the fact that people could/would often use bad language casually, jokingly or for descriptive purposes which always made it seem more like a friendly chat rather than up-tight discussion, but I knew that if it was ever actually used to "hurt" someone then there would be consequences.

I supported the idea of cleaning up ER.

But what you said (BostonAreaBobFan) does not seem quite right. The mods are accountable to the owners and other mods, they are not accountable to the members of ER. This is clear from the following paragraph:




Furthermore, if an action seems fishy, we are to complain to the admins. But we may not know if we have a good complaint or not because it may not have been explained.

Here are some suggestions for starting off with a clean slate: Rescind all previous bannings. Don't use IP numbers for banning, since many people can share the same IP number, "innocent" people might be adversely affected. Explain all banning actions. Use temporary bans instead of permanent ones.

I support 3LM's ideas.

I think the boards should go back to what they were before this whole debacle happened, with a few new guidelines. If we lost the community aspect of ER, it would be simply boring here. I think outlawing sarcasm, cursing and pointless posts would be silly. A poster that makes nothing but pointless posts or is an agitator with constant abrasive language should be dealt with accordingly. I look forward to getting things back to normal here.

It sounds like the moderators are accountable to the administrators. Who would argue otherwise? and that proliferation of redundant faux sisters of mercy circle jerk kibitzing threads obsessed with site administration decisions are detrimental to the health of any site community (including ATU)

Have no idea about the topic(s) that started this. I don't venture out of the general discussions often. I agree with 3LM and hope this gets resolved soon. July 1 is right around the corner!
And I am seriously missing the "Visions" thread and the friends there.

So, Madcow proposes an elaborate and far-reaching terms of use, with enough vagaries included so that almost any post or poster could be considered in violation of them. Then 3LM wants us to endorse complete moderator discretion with no criticism or even discussion thereof.

I know this is not a democracy, but we were asked, so:

Bad ideas. Nay.

Full support to 3LM.

Personal suggestion: let's avoid images and moving stuff in signatures.

Great work on this outstanding resource for Bob Dylan related info.
I for one am happy to comply with all of the new proposed rules and policies.
Keep up the great work in making this my favorite stop for Dylan discussion on the web!

If the new program goes into effect, this might be the last time we are asked for our opinion on these matters and allowed to voice them in the forum.

I encourage everyone who shares these sentiments to offer up another plan. I'm not being sarcastic! I stepped up to the plate with a plan to get this place opened again and to keep it stable. At least that's what I'm hoping for. But that doesn't mean it's the only one that should be considered.

The comments made by 'Anything But A Roll' made a lot of sense to me, especially regarding speculation about Bob Dylan's private life. I won't quote her whole post here, it's on page 7 I think.

I am fascinated by all aspects of Dylan, not just his words, music and performances. That's just how it is, can't be helped. I think he's achieved a skilful balance between guarding his privacy and being inevitably the object of fan curiosity. He's had an interesting life, or should we say 'more lives than a cat'? Not always pleasant to read about in various biographies, but never boring! I do above all respect him for retaining his sanity and for his determined dedication to his work.

But I do think he's insanely funny too! It's all part of his charm.

Blah blah blah...sorry

At first I generally agreed with your sentiment, 3LM, especially if it helps grease the wheels to get ER back up and running. But to completely prohibit discussions, even of a tasteful nature, seems dangerous (I fully support the latter half of the above quote, however). The reason this scares me stems from my experience with the message board on Brian Wilson's website. There was an invaluable poster there who is one of the world experts on BW and has actual ties to the artist's circles, meaning he was one of those wonderful people who could clean out false rumors and provide in-depth perspectives you literally couldn't get anywhere else.

Unfortunately, the poster's style was not to the liking of the site's admin. Mind you, the poster was never vulgar or profane, only direct and occasionally grumpy. But since the admin had his own personal opinion, this tremendous resource and friend was banned forever, and anyone even mentioning his name is immediately deleted. What this has led to is the entire community on that board abandoning it for other sites where such posters (including that particular one) are actually celebrated.

As I said, I fully support 3LM with the exception of completely disallowing conversation on mods' and admins' actions. I myself recently learned of an ER poster being banned which I would never have known about if someone hadn't mentioned it, and I cannot help but wonder what happened since I always thought of that poster as one of the most respected around here. Since I'm not allowed to be more specific than that, I'll just say that I respect the fact that this isn't our site, but I do not see why people should not be allowed to verbally wonder why certain things are the way they are or happened as they did, as long as they do so in an amiable manner, with clear consequences if that last part is ignored.

1. I support TLM's proposals.
2. I can live without sarcasm as long as irony is still allowed.
3. I realize obscenities are the "uhs, "ya knows", and "wells" of many people's vocabularies; they generally don't offend me in those contexts. Don't like 'em much when they are directed at individuals. But, I can certainly live with the ban. I was in graduate school before I could mouth the "f" word without blushing.
4. I think TLM and BZ have been doing an excellent job; thanks guys!
5. Can we bring back the edit? It kills me to see a post of mine with spelling or grammatical errors.
6. Many members of this forum are not native speakers of English. It's one of ER's most appealing aspects. I admire and applaud their efforts at communicating in a foreign language and would hope the new rules wouldn't discourage their participation.
7. Ignore the trolls; even weeds can't grow without sunshine.

If the poster you're talking about was causing the site's admin too much grief, then he/she was fully justified. And what resulted is just the way it goes. Maybe the site admin is out living a life now instead of sitting at a computer constantly dealing with Brian Wilson related cyberdrama .

I hope we hear back on the requested suggestions.
Before the program goes into effect and we can't talk about it any more.

I especially found helpful 3LM's analogy of er members as being similar to guests at a private pub/bar. That sums up the type of cozy/comfortable atmosphere I have found here and would like to have continue.

In light of what Woody said about wanting to be able to discuss moderator decisions or bannings, I would also would like to understand better the results of actions taken. But my life experience is that often the telling of the behind the scenes story can be long, involved, having occurred over lengthy periods of time or after many incidents and usually the information has little relevance to me. To have to justify and explain is a time consuming process. Above all I appreciate the generous gift of time that the mods & admins donate to Expecting Rain. To ask hem to spend time giving us explanations of their decisions is not an effective use of that time, especially when they have said they do not want to.

I am oblivious and clueless about what happened that led to the closing of Off Topic and then the closing of the whole board. I'm curious - actually very curious, really down right nosy (no offense 3LM ), to know what the major heck happened, but I will not ask any moderator to tell me (I am hoping we'll get the low down, however, I will respect their decision to tell or not tell us and be very appreciative either way).

When I say "board", I'm talking about Mods/Admin, not the members. Political World is the place for those foolish enough to argue politics on the internet... (just kidding...no I'm not )

Another word about editing posts: I realize the short editing window was put in place to prevent people from invalidating or obscuring the meaning of succeeding posts by drastically altering the content of their own. (Again, not something I felt had become a pervasive problem by any means, at least not in the Dylan-related fora, but I understand the reasoning behind it.) Still, IMO there are two distinctly negative side-effects to this policy that are serious enough to warrant its reconsideration:

1.) A higher incidence of typos, grammar errors, awkward wording, etc. People don't always notice those things right away, even if they do proofread before they post. I know from personal experience that you can easily miss something initially, but then catch it when you return after a few hours or the next day. Especially in the context of that user agreement draft, which reflects a conception that clarity of meaning and eloquence of language are desirable and valued, this is highly incongruous. As someone else said, I take pride in what I compose and post here, and I abhor not being able to fix my own mistakes because I don't recognize them until too late.

2.) Placing a short limit on the time in which people can edit their own posts is essentially depriving them of the ability to exercise their better judgement after the fact. While I would have no objection to a guideline that encourages people to think carefully before posting in a public forum, I do have an objection to removing or severely limiting a mechanism that facilitates self-censorship and self-control. Sometimes you post something in the heat of a discussion and, upon later reflection, think better of it. Sometimes you want to re-word it to avoid misunderstanding or offense. You should be able to do so.

Mind you, I have no problem with creating some general ground rules regarding responsible use of the edit function that moderators can use as guidelines and enforce as necessary. (i.e., deliberate or intentional distortion or misrepresentation of other posters' responses to one's own posts by means of the edit function is not allowed, etc.)

Great. Political World stays.
Yippee!


Wait ... did I just call myself a fool?

yeah, 3LM, I am with you too..... Like Anything but a Roll, I liked the comparison to the visit with friends at the corner watering hole.... everyone like some excitment, nobody wants the fists to start flying, even if only verbal..... I miss checking out what everyone has to say.....and really am looking forward to the upcoming tour info.... hope things can get done to get the train rolling again......

I think we'll take the "Bar room brawl" part out of the thing I wrote on page 4. Next thing you know they're throwing chairs at the bartender! Let's replace it with mud wrestling.