Member blocked

@Craigo if you go to their profile, it has a status for their account.

It's not a rule that the person be unnamed, but in this case the person in question appeared to feel he was being victimised or humiliated. I certainly don't want to add to that. I am currently working on a fully transparent moderation system so that it's a lot clearer to everybody what is or is not being done.

sorry to hear that, in my opinion the vast majority of people on this forum show no signs of victimising anyone in particular. although the odd individual in the past have seemed to apply a shotgun approach to attacking people.

We have had bullying before. I can certainly say I've taken a couple of 6-month-or-so breaks from the forums on the site in response to antisocial, attacking behaviour from previously-active members other than the most recent episode. Personally, I am happy to be here and very happy to be disagreed with - that's the point of discussion and debate. But when the disagreement becomes ridicule / putdowns, either of me or my views, then participation here ceases to be a pleasure and becomes a pain. The other thing that drives me away is the deliberate posting of provocative material (often, it turns out, not even the true viewpoint of the poster, but just 'sport'), as we've seen from a few users (none currently active). So again it became time to do something else. The good news is that doing something else has resulted in both routeguides.co.nz and mapspast.org.nz. So there's some benefit! The sad thing is that in other places recently I've bumped into other familiar names from tramper, ex-contributors who have 'had enough' and moved on. I sympathise with Matthew. It's a hard call, and a blurred line. And demoralising when you're bitten by the users you serve. A forum would ideally provide free and open discussion. But it should be a pleasure to participate in. Lets hope we achieve that.

I've blocked some past members who I have felt dealt in misinformation and or illogical attacks on people or their ideas... its a hazy area when people are allowed their opinions , some people for whatever reason, deal fast and loose with the truth and or don't want to hear it... and that's not a good thing, can you draw a line between what should be permissible regarding this subject?

I've extensive experience moderating another much larger and more robust forum. Because it was so active 90% of the time we'd catch something within 30 minutes or so of posting. The problem here is that we are not busy enough that there are enough pairs of eyes watching. The alternative is to put all comments into moderation and then release them - but that comes with it's own set of problems as well. Another approach is a voting system like Reddit which hides a comment if too many people dislike it. But that is prone to abuse as well if you set the bar too low and takes too long if you set it high. Given these constraints my conclusion is that Matt needs to take a very clear line. Make it clear that the price of maintaining an open forum will be a strict enforcement of the rules. Abuse the privilege and there will be a consequence. And don't get pulled into fruitless debate. It's YOUR site Matt, and you get to run it according to YOUR standards.No compromise.

"It's YOUR site Matt, and you get to run it according to YOUR standards.No compromise." I agree with this. @Matthew is the one that started this site, he is the one spending his time and money maintaining and improving it, therefore since I am a guest in his house, I will abide by his rules. Matthew always asks for feedback/comments whenever he updates the site rules, and other updates for that matter. And from what I've seen in my 15 odd months on the site is he is more than fair when moderating. Keep up the awesome work @Matthew

"The alternative is to put all comments into moderation and then release them - but that comes with it's own set of problems as well. " To do this for every post would need an army of moderators and slow the forum down too much. However it would be possible to do this for new posters for say up to 3 months or 20 posts say and those under "warning" Still its a huge increase in work for those doing the moderating. The forum I look after tried moderator approval on registrations only. That idea didnt last a month but at the same time we were under attack by spam bots with 300 plus registrations a day. Found another way to deal with them.

i think a lot of us know who got blocked anyway. the behaviour of the person in question came across to me and others i've talked to as anti social and they stood out like a sore thumb. if they feel persecuted, i havent seen a scrap of evidence to support that so the claim is unsubstantiated, so their identity is going to be protected based on this? they should take a good look in the mirror and own their own thoughts and emotions and not blame other people entirely for whats going on in their head. if people are going to point the finger in public, then they should be prepared to have it pointed back at them as well. you cant control what other people are going to do to respond, live with it.

interesting, a deleted message from a "pipe king" a new user who's account has already been suspended...