a small course abt blogging ethics & forum rules for every newbie who signs up
A small course abt blogging ethics & forum rules for every newbie who signs up makes Sense?
As everyone knows, we come across many bloggers time and again start self promotion on the forum. Eben though it has been said many times over, some become rebellious. Upto a certain extent, we can certainly avoid this if we have small eductation course mandatory for all newbies who sign up for Indiblogger.
Without passing this course, no one is allowed to participate in the forum or any activities on IndiBlogger. It can be a typical eLearning module which has questions at the end of the course and the blogger has to answer 75% correctly. What are your thoughts...
The questions can be 5 or 6 in number and will be based on the 10 or 20 dos and donts at IndiBlogger. Target being those users who do not read the welcome email sent to them with all the required details they should read before they join the forum.
Again, the point is to keep it simple at the same time spreading the right message to new joiners.
Reason: formatting
Pramod, I am not talking of a full course which takes hours to complete! I can be a simple list of dos and donts and ask the user what he understood from it! It is just a check point to ensure the user is aware of certain things. These things can be like:
- Where is IndiBlogger's FAQ located
- Where can you promote your posts?
- Do you understand posts or threads categorization on IndiBlogger
Some simple questions. The answers to these are from a 15 point quick book which mentions dos and donts. It is not to complicate things, just to ensure that users are aware that people here do take things seriously.
I agree to your point completely that too many rules are deterrent. Indiblogger is not a place where we stop everyone for fooling around. On the forum, unwanted discussions are still happening which again were not supposed to be conducted but we are turning a blind eye as everyone is enjoying.
Only people who try to promote their blog on forum, spamming users with mails etc. can be avoided by a check placed initially.
To keep deleting things Pramod is not a good idea. If we get 100 such threads and everyday we keep deleting 50 threads does not make sense. We have to stem a change for the long run. Sorc has been deleting the Stock market share tips and stuff threads regularly.
@Pramod we alreayd have rules listed here on what should be followed on the forum its only that people do not read. that is why this solution. but i agree with your point of view which seesm to be fair and rationale
There are hundreds of such e books available on the net and none of them have practical solutions... I wonder if it would really help.
100 spam threads a day! Is that information correct?
Team bhp has one of the stringent terms and conditions to become a member. First of all if one has to get approved as a member he or she has to justify their joining the site. Membership approval takes 6 months to 1 year after number of attempts one gets in. A limited feature is opened up for a newbie during initial times. A strict policy of no hatred or abusive language is tolerated, even SMS language is rejected, one has to tow the line otherwise one is in for refraction and penalty. There are number of moderators with the batch they immediately pounce on the offenders. It is high time Indi team introduces some such features to regulate guys getting into unecessary controversy. I fully agree with you Hemal on regulation
As I said earlier at Arti's Sorcrer's thread, Team BHP can have those stringent conditions and we are happy without. IF you see people gelling with each other so well, flying promises of friendship to life and so much emotional attachment to this forum, Umesh its all coz we are very less stringent. As Pramod said above, too many rules are detterent. Team BHP's most of the members are there only to know what new is coming in. The discussions revolve around cars and bikes and everything in between.
IndiBlogger is much versatile a platform and hence, there is a huge difference in the audience that we get here compared to Team BHP.
Also, maybe the Indipolice can be given permissions to modify the topic if they feel it can be used in a general sense, retaining the essence of the topic which is helpful and the spamming part deleted..?
A very good thought Leo, but when a group of idiots decide to spam together, indiPolice will have problems handling. try to educate and eradicate as much as possible, and then irrants can be caught still by IndiPolice
If we do that, Indipolice need to make a habit of putting up a note on the first post and mention their profile nick, this way other Indipolice knows who has handled the thread.
this can become an issue incase a member misses doing that.
haha @pramod cleaver, yesh people who dont wanna read but strat bang bang without knowing what
I like the idea given by leo, may be we could also have some active people from the forum help the IndiPolice out in these matters..
I wanna Batch like this to be created which is taken from SC website
For IndiPolice? we already have one...
Please upload the batch Hemal if you have access to the same
I like the idea and the intention, Hemal. But we should keep things as simple as possible because the idea of an elaborated registration process might be a turn-off for many, isnt it?
As long as it is not complicated and doesnt give a wrong impression of indi as a 'community with too many rules', I'm all for it. Cheers!
Agree. For a few offenders, we cant trouble the innocent people and afford to lose them. We should try to keep it concise and informative at the same time..
i think it should work, will discuss this with Renie..
@ Arti i don t wanna repeat of an episode sometime back where our dear M ...... vanished from the forum because of insults. Remember we had to coax and cajole to make her come back.
I am really sorry Umeshji and all the friends, for all that things! Though later I didn't keep myself away from Indi intentionally, but you can see was engaged in other things. I don't know you guys noticed or not, but I was working with formar diplomat Shantanu Bhagwat Sir and my work is still pending. It was a tough task of my life to translate some part of UN Resolution on Kashmir in Hindi. Done it successfully. :)
@Umeshji Yes, we all should strive to take steps in the right directions and see to it that a healthy environment develops for one and all here..
@Mohinee You are exemplary in whatever you do! Wish you all the success always :)
As Indi is simpler than other communities, let it be so. I agree with DS, increase no. of Indpolice. I still don't know, who are hired and who are working for their wish. If officially hired, they can give full time.
i agree that as a community you have the right to make your rules in regards to the people you would like to populate the community. But for a community which is based on blogging which to a great extent is about writing without walls or rules this can be slightly counter productive. How about looking at it from another point of view. How about we learn not to react to provocations? How about the community founders to be the voice of reason and wisdom?
I feel as long as the forum does not dissolve into personal insulting and jibes, it shud be a place we can have discussion and debates on any thing. Sometimes what we find offensive reveals a lot about us.
well said tys,
hemal, believe me when i say that i understand your concern. However, dont you think that self promotional dies a natural death in the forum ? It does provoke ire but from what I have seen here , it gets shot down pretty fast by the community members. I think they are smart to recognize the intention behind a post on the forum
What I mean to say is that, we are bloggers . We are self promoters. We will try every trick in the book to get more eyeballs. This is what we are and thats what we do. The motivation behind bloggers forming communities, becoming members, visting, commenting , posting etc , is all in the name of promotion. Every thing here is in the name of self promotion, so in the midst of it someone trying to trick the trickster will expose himself very fast.
and pay the price.
your members are more intelligent that you give them credit for. :)
@tys mate, it all does die its natural death. and i completely understand that we can ignore it all. also agree that if someone thinks of doing it still, it will happen. and also agree that forum members shoot down that promotion attitude. It all works my friend, but it also brimms frustraion into the existing forum members. We can see it now in two recent threads, if you may have missed. Also, some of them have replied back in a flaming manner, have abused forum members. I really wanna only drive this on the assumption that this may help. I am not sure, and here is why I am asking everyone's views.
A way to avoid this situation as much as possible. I have suggestions from our fellow bloggers coming in this thread as well. I apologize if I sounded too harsh or in debate mode. I want to be open to ideas.
What the intention is to convey this simple message in a fun filled manner which is not taxing either.
hemal, u do not come across as harsh or in a debate mode...gather all the ideas...iam sure you will find the right approach...personally i do not believe in being diplomatic with morons who is insulting , moreover acting the big shot stud in the cyber sphere is the most pathetic attempt of chest thumping i have ever seen in my life... these guys are a joke hemal...
laugh at them...better to release R.A.J on them...for good measure ask Arti to suggest a great scenic trip to kingdom come for them...
how abt it? Have a crack team of bloggers to take these monkeys down in the forum, while the other members watch...we will have our own gladiator sport...
hmmm...think iam onto something...
Each and every word you said is right, absolutely right. But there is only one problem. These people can seriously harm you on personal note and Hemal would second me as he is a big big victim of one of such things.
@Animesh I do and with a pathetic experience on that, second you on that view point.
we can still give it a shot. I am considering both suggestions (about a small test & spam-crack team) so lets see how others are thinking on this.
If there is some such requirement, I would straight away be deterred from joining. No one has patience to do a e-learning and exam and all that.
Well, I think a newbie coming to register at indiblogger is likely to drop the idea of registering the minute e-learning comes up without entering to see how long it takes. Generally if someone sends me a link and it is a video, I just ignore it. I don't have patience even to wait for a video to load. I beleive in general other surfers also have the same low attention span.
Well, it is not before registering, its before the newbie enters the forum. and I do agree about the view point you have provided here, that sometimes even I do it.
IMO, communities cannot be built or preserved by policing. There will always be the deviant and the discordant. Perhaps their presence is a reminder of the preciousness of what we have in the community. Flamers and abusers thrive on attention. If you stop acknowledging them, they will wither away. Just as responsibility is the ability to respond, it also implies the ability to choose what you will respond to. Policing is necessary when there is uncertainty about the ties that hold us together. If we believe that abusive (or let us just say uncivil or uninformed) participants can threaten the community, it speaks of the weakness of the community, not the strength of the abuser.
However, the suggestions that new members like me can be offered education and insight, and that more can be done to positively reinforce quality of participation and of course, quality of blogging, are excellent ones that will add value to this already very active community.
As is apparent from the intensity of the conversation here, this reply of mine is the one to be ignored.
I agree with every word you said but then I see some problems which is derived from my past experience on this forum.
If you ignore flamers and abusers, they do not stop. Till date every abuser of the forum has arrived in a group and all of them kept abusing and flaming continuously for many days till the time they were not replied to. And replying to them lead to even worse situation. You can serach the forum and community blogs for various such examples.
On the other hand, I'm not in the favor of any test as it may not be liked by many nor would it serve any purpose as I already said earlier its about attitude, not about knowing. There already is enough material for those who want to learn.
Ignoring flamers and abusers will not make them stop what they do at best, same goes for confrontation. If each comment had a report button then people can report such comments and mods will take care of it provided it needs to be taken care of.
Thank you @Subhorup for your comments and I am sure, no one would ignore yours. See, you already got two responces and that speaks about the community for you. 
You brining in a very valid point when you said, if at all anything can threaten the community it speaks for the weakness of the community and not the strength of the abuser. I agree to that view point.
This reaction comes to us, as Animesh said (the story teller guy), is based on our previous experience. IF just one of the aspect of a flaming post/reply may hurt one among hundreds in the forum and if one person finds it abusive enough not to resist an urge to respond, it defeats the decorum.
I am aligned to the view that we can positively inspire and educate new members on quality of participation and, of course, blogging.
Sorc! completely agree with you. Mods, responsible mods need to be given the authority to handle those kind of responces and should enable flagging on each and every thread.
I can see that you have had experiences that have made you feel this way, which I was not aware of. Empowered and proactive moderators should help. I also agree that even if a hundred people were to ignore but one person were to be hurt, it is necessary to prevent it from happening. As for the "reply to be ignored" bit, I was just being nasty. Apologies.
actually attention seekers seeks attention ( brilliant deduction, eh?)...so any response will only serve as an incentive...best retaliation to people who throw tantrums, hysteria, and other such me syndromes is to ignore it...nothing pains more than noone paying any attention.
anyone listening?...anyone?
damn!
how about a thumbs down icon or some such stuff which will enable the forum users to give the person enuf rope to hang themselves?...one too many thumbs down and u r outta here, the thread gets shut down.
that way we give the person a chance of redemption or explaining their point of view or a side door for them to escape with dignity.
personally i wud prefer a middle finger icon...but i know no one will agree...but i can always ask cant i? please?
We can think of that too, but I am not really sure how that helps.
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