Thread: Complaints & Solutions

Friends,

As we have worked to upgrade things here at ALIPAC to handle the massive amount of time and energy these boards are consuming, a lot of complaints have surfaced.

Unlike the Golden Rule, these complaints have been launched as open criticisms and borderline attacks when neither I or the other moderators have received any concerns prior to this.

These boards are becoming unmanageable due to the actions and mood of a subsection of users here.

If we were to reduce or cease our moderation then ALIPAC would become ineffective as a tool communicating with or working with candidates or Congress.

We cannot allow racism, violence, vulgarity, race baiting, or wild claims that cannot even be researched to be posted here on our site.

We have several options. We can lock out the boards and shut down non archive discussions. We can shut the boards to the posting from the general public. Or we can get this straightened out.

We are open to your complaints and suggestions. The rules at ALIPAC were originally forged by the participants here.

These boards are now eating up about 10-20 hours of my workweek taking my efforts away from other vital projects. The combined moderator allotment now exceeds 100 manpower hours per week just to keep things afloat.

We have missed several poorly phrased comments that have resulted in OBL attacks using that material on ALIPAC. Some participants here seem to have no concern for the damage or firefighting for ALIPAC with such unrestrained and inconsiderate comments.

We locked out the boards for over a week.

Yet these problems persist. Again, we are the only PAC that I know of that works with elected officials that even attempts to have an open source board like this for your use.

These boards are running our other operations into the ground due to the problems here.

Let's get this out in the open before management makes a decision on this.

William

W,

I would hate to see the boards shut down.

What is meant by not allowing posting from the general public? What would that involve?

As for straightening it out, I have no ideas on how to do that. You have a large group of people from different backgrounds, temperments, beliefs, etc. I know we should all keep our heads but I would imagine for most people this is a very emotional issue (it is for me) and people are angry and say things they may not necessarily mean or especially in a forum can be taken the wrong way as there is no direct human contact, meaning there is no opportunity to observe tone of voice, body language etc. Good luck. I do not envy your position.

It's true it is a very emotional issue for all of us or we wouldn't be here. I certainly have no problems with the board having moderators, all boards have moderators. I think that is a must have. Sometimes we don't give enough thought as to what we are posting, I know I am certainly guilty of that. It seems that in almost any situation where you are dealing with a crowd or numberous people there has to be rules, there also has to be fairness and judgement and criticisms should be held behind closed doors, in this case pm's, email, perhaps, for the purpose of not fueling the fire. I once served as a juror in federal court, I remember the judge telling the jurors that in making a judgement that we were to take into consideration our life experiences and work with those in the case. I am not making any suggestions here, but life experience taken into consideration would be 3 strikes and you are out and I could be putting myself out by making such a statement not to mention upsetting people on the board, but to me if someone is deliberately posting things that are not acceptable, that go against the rules and have had 2 warnings then maybe it is time to take some time out. This is my life experience, yours may be different. But I do think that using your life experience to make judgments whatever they may concern is good advice. I personally will try to control my emotions and actually think about what I am typing instead of just typing it in the future and stop and give some thought as to how this might sound to others or if it is even appropriate. Maybe we can all work to together for the betterment of the board in making sure they we are abiding by the rules when we post. I apologize if I have stepped on anyone toes here, that is not my intentions and I find it very commendable on your behalf William that you ask the people on this board for suggestions, that shows fairness on your part, kudo's to you!

Originally Posted by ALIPAC

We have several options. We can lock out the boards and shut down non archive discussions. We can shut the boards to the posting from the general public. Or we can get this straightened out.
William

Can you elaborate on these options you've listed?

The first one means shut the boards down completely to all new posts?

The second one means only those who have contributed money to ALIPAC can post?

What do you mean, "get this straightened out," are there other options besides the other two mentioned?

Originally Posted by patbrunz

Originally Posted by ALIPAC

We have several options. We can lock out the boards and shut down non archive discussions. We can shut the boards to the posting from the general public. Or we can get this straightened out.
William

Can you elaborate on these options you've listed?

The first one means shut the boards down completely to all new posts?

The second one means only those who have contributed money to ALIPAC can post?

What do you mean, "get this straightened out," are there other options besides the other two mentioned?

I'm open to any suggestions. Lately, several people on our boards have chosen not to communicate concerns to management and then go overboard on the site with criticisms, so here is everyone's shot.

Let's hear the complaints and how everyone feels things can be made better.

We can take the boards off ALIPAC, lock them down so they exist read only and nobody posts, lock out all new users, or require all new users to require moderator approval to join the posting community here. Those are the software options.

The other things we have put in place already in the last few weeks is revised rules, rules posted at the top of every area, rules posted where each new member must agree before signing in.

We have also added a new feature we are about to announce where each of you can report rule violations using the red exclamation mark in the upper left hand corner.

We've done about all we can think of to do, but some people continue to want to pull people away from our boards, break the rules, announce themselves as new leaders possessing secret knowledge etc...

W

We have missed several poorly phrased comments that have resulted in OBL attacks using that material on ALIPAC.

W. ... I would like to know more about the OBL's and what they are saying or doing ... I have toned down my posts as requested ... it has not been easy as this is a very dear subject to me as is anything that has to do with my country ... I will give you my vote as to what needs to be done..

I to, will work hard at controlling my emotions here. If I have said thngs in the past that were not kosher, it was not done with any deliberate attempt to sabotage your board here William, I can promise you that. I am impulsive at times, I will control that in the future starting right now. This is such a wonderful board, I have learned so much from everyone on here, there are some really brilliant people on these boards, I thank all of them for their time and energy, thoughtfullness, and research efforts they put into their post, in helping to inform me, and others like me who are not so adept with computer and research skills. I have had the pleasure of meeting some really super people here, I feel are friends,who have really tried hard to teach me what I need to know in order to be a little more adept at fighting this illegal invasion. Before coming here, I was upset and very frustrated about this issue, but really didnt think anything I could do might change anything about what the government is doing, now,after watching you people in action, I know different, I can make a difference, doing nothing is the unacceptable thing with me now. Everytime I hang a flyer or talk with a friend or family member about Alipac, and the things we can do to change what we don't like about our government, I feel a little less frustrated then I did before meeting you all.As for as making things better, the only thing I can think of for myself is not to take things personally when the moderator does his or her job and tries to lead me back to the issues here!

Ummmm, to lock out the board could be construed as a victory for La Raza and other subversive bad guy organizations. The use of the exclamation point software enhancement should be tested; it might preclude bad guys from joining and abusing, by catching em quickly.

Just my 2 cents worth.
Coto

Second as I am fairly new here I am not sure I have the right to comment. I would think from what I have seen the Mod's here a great people. I would also think that one mistake and you are out is kind of harsh but warranted in a few extreme instances. Like the gal that did the link to grassfire, was being banned the answer? Maybe a warning would have sufficed. I think that someone saying “Mexican” is not racist, after all 80 percent of the illegals here are Mexican’s. Now I think if they were to use a verb then Mexicans that may be construed as racist. I would then agree, you need to be civil as I would hope that most the people on the boards are civil. I don’t know what Concerned Vet said but again maybe a little PM from a mod would have done the trick and maybe that was tried I don’t know. I know that the Reps in office look at numbers and it is good to walk in with the fact we have five million votes to work with. Then they will listen. Then you start to become a power. Look at the unions.
Lets face the facts they are not perfect angels up at the house either. One taking bribes with 90,000 in the freezer and they stand behind him, another gets 20 years. Then you have Ted Kennedy or how about the one that punched the cop in the face then walks away clean from a grand jury. DC has one of the highest crime rates in the US. I agree that control has to be maintained but is banishment always the answer? I also know that boards can eat your life away so nothing else get done if you are the mod trying to play baby sitter, but I also think there should be some free speech without the threat of being kicked off the board. Maybe a hand slap rule. You own the board W so your law stands, what ever you decide I will live with or I can take my typing elsewhere
I just think there is power in numbers. I don’t think loosing people is the answer, I think channeling their aggression with a task list might be a better answer. maybe a calendar that say if your mad then do something and pick some tasks off today to do list and get it done first, then come and tell of your accomplishments. Last I would like to say that this group has some of the best people I have had the pleasure to communicate with and for that to be gone would be a waste.

AmericanMade,

We do not ban people for small infractions. Anything racist, violent, or destructive to ALIPAC gets a ban pretty quick.

Kurt received many many PM's and we invested more time trying to help him here than over 95% of our regular users.

Nobody has been banned for posting a link to Grassfire.

Be careful AmericanMade, there are some bitter folks out there that have been kicked off the board and mostly for telling lies and trying to stir up trouble instead of working towards our goals as a team.

We banned a lady for posting links to a White Nationalist website which is prohibited here. We were considering letting her back on when she claimed it was an honest mistake, but then she started acting nasty so we let the ban stick.

Our moderators here work more with people than any other board I have ever been on. The results with many of these problem posters has been they have returned the favor with ire.

They think they are being babied or manipulated because a moderator points out a problem with a post they do not feel there is a problem with. Then once they have had trouble, they try to unify.

From now on, one clear change will be that people that create serious problems in the beginning are gone. No more salvage jobs.

W