[inquiry]

an offensive post noting the passing of Nelson Mandela was deleted. A similar occurrence will get the poster banned from this site.

[PhilKing]

 inquiry, on 2013-December-05, 21:22, said:

an offensive post noting the passing of Nelson Mandela was deleted. A similar occurrence will get the poster banned from this site.

Blimey. What would someone have to do to get banned for one offence?

[wyman]

 inquiry, on 2013-December-05, 21:22, said:

an offensive post noting the passing of Nelson Mandela was deleted. A similar occurrence will get the poster banned from this site.

Just to have the discussion:

I agree that the post was offensive. But to be clear, was the post deleted / action taken:
- because of the offensive language?
- because the RIP thread is somehow sacred?
- because most of the world reveres Mandela?

If the first, then I'd say that:
- the rules regarding language use should be made clear, and
- we should have a profanity filter.

If the third, then I completely disagree with disciplinary action. While the post wasn't productive, the water cooler should be a place where we can discuss current events. Maybe it didn't belong in the RIP thread (which means it was case (2)), but I don't think that expressing a sentiment about a world leader (even an unpopular sentiment) should in any way affect one's standing in this community.

If the second, then we should make it clear that the RIP thread is only for happy remembrances / positive thoughts / etc, and we can extract off-topic or offensive posts (with a warning). But I don't see why the poster wouldn't be allowed to start a water cooler thread about how much he hates Mandela, so long as he's not here (for example) espousing all sorts of racist views and inciting the community.

In any case, I obviously agree with deleting the post from the RIP thread, and I think it was in poor taste. I wondered even whether it was worth writing this note. But when it comes to discussions of banning, I couldn't really articulate his major offense in a way that wouldn't allow me to cite several posts committing the same offense. Posts in poor taste and/or with foul language and/or with little or no content fly all the time on this site. So I thought it was worth bringing up.

[blackshoe]

It wasn't a profanity, it was an obscenity. Not that that makes much difference, I suppose.

[cherdano]

Oh wow I really want to know who posted it now...

[barmar]

Moved the thread about speaking English at the bridge table from General Bridge Forum to General BBO Forum.

[inquiry]

Two post listing bbo players by name have been edited to remove the names of the allege violators, and in both cases, a report was forwarded to abuse with the allegations that appeared in the post. A more direct way to report people is to write ABUSE directly.

[barmar]

Another thread about the stalker was started in General BBO Forum tonight. I deleted it since it was redundant with the original one (which was originally posted in General Bridge Forum, but I moved to BBO Support Forum) and she ignored Inquiry's admonition against posting names of players.

[inquiry]

Third time in less than 24 hours a post about an alleged sexual predator on the BBO gaming site has been edited to remove the nicknames of the alleged predator. Abuse has been told of this allegation and is investigator. As always, such public post listing names is not allowed, so some content was removed and once again a plea to the poster to stop naming names was added in a reply.

[Bbradley62]

Never mind a "plea"; she should be told in no uncertain terms that if it happens again, SHE will be suspended.

[barmar]

I've closed the "Stayman" thread in Novice/Beginner because it has digressed into personal attacks against one of the posters.

[mr1303]

There have been a number of potentially interesting threads that have been locked down recently because a number of forum posters have lost the ability to be polite and civil towards each other.

Unfortunately, it doesn't even seem to be the same people who are doing it.

I would REALLY like to see a change in mindset from a lot of people on these forums. If someone calls you an idiot, ignore them, or call them an idiot back via PM. Don't ruin interesting threads for the rest of us.

[barmar]

Merged a thread about the BBO Android 3.70 update that was created in General Bridge Discussion into the existing thread in BBO Support Forum.

[barmar]

Moved a thread that was posted in Chinese to the Chinese Forum.

[aguahombre]

Hey, Barry: since you closed the whole category of BBO Tech Support Forum, how about making it go away?

[barmar]

 aguahombre, on 2014-February-16, 17:01, said:

Hey, Barry: since you closed the whole category of BBO Tech Support Forum, how about making it go away?

I chose to leave it around for archival purposes. Click the minus icon to minimize it.

[aguahombre]

 barmar, on 2014-February-16, 17:08, said:

I chose to leave it around for archival purposes. Click the minus icon to minimize it.

I did that, but the big red space-consuming Forum title is still there, and every once in a while the minus'd forums reappear so that I can minus them again.

[barmar]

aguahombre, on 2014-February-16, 20:35, said:

I did that, but the big red space-consuming Forum title is still there, and every once in a while the minus'd forums reappear so that I can minus them again.

This forum option is apparently in a cookie, so they'll reappear if you clear cookies or use a different computer.

But I put it down at the bottom of the list so it won't be intrusive.

[inquiry]

Moved a post asking about the gaming software from beginner/novice forum to BBO support forum.

[barmar]

Removed the thread "Looking to add live chat plugin". It doesn't seem to be related to bridge or BBO.