Woodbine

MarkM88

Cressida said:

@lisathomas50 this thread was started as a support to Woodbine.  Your comment appears to be putting the boot in. Sometimes its better to say nothing if you don't agree. 

The thread was also started in relation to moderation, so course it’s going to get discussed. 

Cress

lisathomas50 

@woodbine this is not aimed at you this is in general  what I have learnt in life is that people are replacable other people will come along with the same knowledge  or better 

Oh, so that's ok then...
Dont take on so folks, we're all expendable!

Lisatho11987777

@Cressida I am not putting the boot in I am putting things into perspective  that game changers aren't above anyone else 

In a message received from woodbine  he doesn't expect to be treated differently  but equally  I have alot of respect for woodbine and he feels very humble for all  of your support 

I am  just  haveing a discussion  and not haveing a dig or putting the boot in 

Lisatho11987777

@Cress there are new people comeing on here all the time  people I have made  friends with have gone or stopped posting  but that's life  

poppy123456

Oh dear, some people just can't help their self can they. They always need to have the last word!

Lisatho11987777

Scope  can you please take @woodbine off moderation  so thst he can post as normal on Tuesday 

At the moment woodbine is going through a rough time I think that not being able to post since yesterday  has been punishment enough 

If you can let @woodbine post as normal from Tuesday  as  this week is going to be a tough time for him and he needs his friends on here 

Myself and woodbine have had our ups and downs  but I still respect him  so I am asking that scope lift the moderation so that woodbine gets the support he needs  and is haveing investigations for cancer and needs that support  

Thank you ?

Lisatho11987777

@poppy123456 you don't know me very well then 

poppy123456

Lisa, i would apppreciate it if you stopped tagging me.

Lisatho11987777

I apologise ?

chiarieds

Perhaps, unfortunately, I've never found people irreplaceable....mea culpa. I have been here because people matter to me.

I feel there's a problem, & will liken it to a PIP appeal. With that, the tribunal just have to consider 'on the balance of probabilities' if the claimant should be awarded or not.

So, bringing this back to a thread about @woodbine , on the balance of probabilities, has he done more good than harm, & was there ever any intent to cause such perceived harm? Just my opinion, but the short answer is a resounding 'no.' Did another member accuse him of any wrong-doing, or was the perceived 'harm' from a moderator? I feel there's a difference between the two; perhaps not? The community's guidelines should perhaps just be that, 'guidelines', & then any judgement should be made with some understanding of the individuals concerned, together with a tad of common sense.

I do feel everyone here should be 'moderated' in exactly the same way regardless of how long a member has been here, but perhaps with a modicum of respect as to what some have tried to do to help the community. Say a wrong word, & it appears you are judged....another member can say what they will, & are perceived as almost invariably correct. This to my mind needs redressing, & communication between the claimant, & another who has 'apparently' breached the community's guidelines should take place before Scope decide what to do. Surely that's fair to everyone, & logical?

@Cressida thank you for your lovely reply in supporting John, but also for your very correct feeling that perhaps some of us will be driven away by the moderators, who will not tolerate personal abuse, which on the whole some of us have had to tolerate.....

@leeCal you are a very kind, helpful & supportive member; long may it continue.  

@janer1967 thank you for supporting John; for your kind comments & support. @Cress for your much needed sense of humour, thank you too.

cupcake88

Hi every one just seen this post wanna sending my support  for @poppy123456 and @woodbine nice to see friends sticking up for each other . 

Nice to see you posting @chiarieds xx 

I have been on this forum for nearly a year a I think and I have seen it massively change . I look to this forum for support , to speak to my friends , for advice and to hopefully help other people and show my support as many of us do . 

I think some times people forget that we are all disabled or know some one who’s disabled but I think most of the members on here have a disability . And those members who took time out of there day to help provide good advice to people advice that personally you couldn’t get at citizens advice And to see those members criticised for giving advice is heart breaking . 

I’m very upset that @poppy123456 left the forum the forum and the members mean a lot to her and she gave good factual advise And she shows so much support to members it’s a shame she felt she had to leave you are truly missed . 

@woodbine is a long standing respected member Who has always given great factual and supportive advice and has always has kind words to say to me when I haven’t been well. I’m sorry that you feel that way wood bine I don’t like any one feeling sad . I don’t see what you have done wrong personally. I’m sorry that this has happened and also I’m sorry to hear bout your health worries I wish you all the very best . I hope you will be able to post again soon . 

And I must say that there are some people that are not replaceable there a lot of people who I call my friends on here and they are not replaceable .  

Last time I ended up defending a forum member I started to get really upset and use cus words which I don’t want to do but I will say there is some proper bull s*** going on on this forum lately .  I think woodbine should be able to post and I don’t want any one else to leave . And if admin want to ban me for saying bullsh*** then they can it’s my opinion . 

Much love to every one . 

Lisatho11987777

Mike if woodbine had been suspended instead of moderated would that of made things any better? I am just asking the question 

On other sites yes people get suspended  but that is what is different about scope they try to treat us like adults and hope that when a polite warning is either posted on here or by email  that we take it on board 

Which ever way you look at it on this forum we all come under the same rules so anyone of us can be put under moderation 

From what I can gather I could be wrong its woodbines first time on moderation it has resly upset him and from what has been said a bit of shock

I have asked for woodbine to be taken off moderation due to him haveing news that he does need support for from friends  and the people on the forum  

It's not that I don't agree with moderation and if I was put on moderation I would accept it and move on from it  

If scope do remove woodbine from moderation  and woodbine  breached the rules after it was lifted then nothing could be said as woodbine knows what the consequences  are and knows what is expected  and hope that woodbine would accept that would happen 

The only reason this thread is happening is because woodbine chose to let people know through another person and also on private message and that is fine there is nothing wrong with that 

As long as its discussed in a fair manner and not as above in only a couple of posts mentioning other posters  and haveing a go becsuse they don't like what another poster had said 

What people need to decide in my opinion is do people want scope to take action when posters break the rules and conditions if they do then people have to face the consequences  

Adrian_Scope

Following numerous reports this thread is now closed, pending review. 

A few quick notes:
While I don't know the minutiae of why Woodbine is on moderation, even when I do, we will not be engaging in a public discussion regarding this as we've always had a policy of confidentiality. He is certainly not the only active member on moderation. However, I will try to reply to specific queries regarding the process or suggestions for improvement.

I'd also like to add, whatever the circumstances, circumventing moderation by creating additional accounts, or having friends post content on behalf of another member who is on moderation (however well-intentioned) is not acceptable.

The moderation process takes time and we aim to review and post messages within 24 hours. The post in question was initially posted outside of staff hours and is still sat in a queue waiting to be reviewed.
Scope like every organisation, is juggling furloughed staff, reduced hours, staff leave, holidays and illness and yesterday none of the team were available, although I did pop on briefly in my own time to check for safeguarding issues and approved a few simple posts from the moderation queue.

As a side note: I don't start until 9 and it appears I have a lot of catching up to do and am the only team member on shift until much later so it may take a little longer to review this thread than usual.

Adrian_Scope

Firstly, I'd like to apologise to @woodbine and others for how long they've waited for post approval this weekend.
As mentioned, sadly the community team were not available yesterday so his posts (and those of other members currently on moderation) were sat in a queue until we looked at them today.

I do however stand by my earlier comment that circumventing moderation is not acceptable. I'm sure many of us remember certain members who were placed on moderation (or banned) and would return on new accounts or have friends post to circumvent the moderation policy. It wasn't acceptable then (and many of you were quick to complain), and while the circumstances may seem different, the rules, as everybody is quick to state, should be applied universally. 

That said, it's been touching to see all of the support Woodbine has been offered here and this is the community I remember and we should all strive to be - one that bands together.

MarkN88 said:

How do you know other members that you perceive as doing something wrong have not been dealt with privately by the Scope team? No one would know this as it’s not made public. 

I'd like to highlight this post as I think it makes a very good point. While Woodbine has been quite public about being on moderation, it is handled by the team as discreetly as possible and there are a number of active members currently on moderation. Further to this, we are in regular contact with many members of the community working towards a more positive outcome. 

chiarieds said:

Did another member accuse him of any wrong-doing, or was the perceived 'harm' from a moderator? I feel there's a difference between the two; perhaps not? The community's guidelines should perhaps just be that, 'guidelines', & then any judgement should be made with some understanding of the individuals concerned, together with a tad of common sense.

I do feel everyone here should be 'moderated' in exactly the same way regardless of how long a member has been here, but perhaps with a modicum of respect as to what some have tried to do to help the community. 

Thank you for your thoughts on this @chiarieds. It may not always feel like it, but this is exactly how we try and moderate. When we receive a report we look at the intent and apply common sense to the situation. It would be unfair of me to comment on this specific incident and Woodbine's moderation so I'll address this more generally.
Unless in cases of a clear rule breach, the team try to take a step back from over-moderating and are guided by the reports we receive and any escalation on threads. Many people don't like to complain publicly or highlight they've been upset but as an example, this morning I had over 120 emails relating to reports from the community. The overwhelming majority of which were from members feeling attacked or offended by another poster or on a poster's behalf. 

Username_removed said:

There is apparently a four stage model of moderation. Took me the best part of five years here to learn that. Even then, only because I asked why two weeks moderation had turned into three months. 

The 4 stage moderation process hasn't been around 5 years, in fact it's not even been in place for 1. It's a fairly recent internal addition introduced to help the team deal with the growing problem of repeat "offenders". Previously the model was shorter, but left little room for the rehabilitation of members we judged to be of value to the community. Under the former model, a member who may have found themselves on extended periods of moderation would have previously been banned. Instead, we wanted the room to remove people from moderation..

Username_removed said:
I’ve been in moderation for long periods at least three times. That has usually been because people didn’t like my tone. Two issues with that. Firstly it was not clear whether the complainant was a poster or Scope themselves. In one sense it doesn’t matter but when you realise that “tone” is not detailed in the site T&Cs then the alarm bells start ringing. Was there a complainant or was the complainant actually Scope? If the latter then you’re not applying a policy. You’re basically just making something up to justify your own discomfort. 

I believe this is addressed in my response to Chiarieds above, but with regards to 'tone' I would imagine this is covered by the 'keep it friendly'. I would be reluctant to add a specific rule as tone is subjective, but I think as a community we all know 'keep it friendly' includes not being rude, passive-aggressive or committing the micro-aggressions which are sadly rife across the community at the moment. In the interest of confidentiality we don't reveal the sources of complaints and have no intention of changing that policy, although if you'd like some specific instances of where concerns have been raised to us over tone you're more than welcome to email me.

Username_removed said:

The current policy of allowing all kinds of abuse but editing them out to allow questions to be posted is untenable; beyond ridiculous and, frankly, we should publicly ridicule it at every opportunity. 

Thank you for this useful piece of feedback. While I don't agree that we should pull entire posts for the odd wrong word and feel editing still serves a purpose, I do agree that there should be a line drawn somewhere and this is something the team will discuss and review.


On a final note, I am very disappointed to see personal attacks and accusations being levelled at the team. We have always been quite open in allowing criticism of Scope but personal comments on character, calling them 'over-zealous' or (to paraphrase) 'power-mad' isn't acceptable. While their duties do include the moderation of the community, there is a lot more to the role and it can be challenging and draining both mentally and emotionally. The three of them work incredibly hard, under difficult circumstances, and are extremely passionate about the community and its members. Yet they load the community every day to see messages telling them they're bad at their jobs. If there are genuine concerns or complaints about a member of the community team, then you are welcome to email me, but public posts relating to this topic will not be tolerated.