Dgt = Gone

[JCABRANES]

it's really hard to figure out what part of "it sucked" that some folks are just not getting.

from the road (trail, actually),

ian

forum liaison

I promised myself that I would not respond to this but as you can see I couldn't resist the temptation.

YOU say it sucked. A group of your buddies and other members of the pc patrol may say it sucked. But there is plainly a group of us who did not think it sucked. You had the power to delete the forum so you did. That does not mean that the forum sucked just that your opinion and the opinion of the perpetually offended is worth more than those of us who frequented the DGT forum. I say, as have others in this thread, that DGT didn't suck. But as you have made crystal clear to us, it doesn't matter what we say, yours is the final word on the subject.

 

[darrylri]

Well, you asked for a response. DGT was not my beat (I moderate the Hexheads and Vintage areas, though I do jump in on other things as I see them). I also didn't go there, though as a moderator, I could not avoid seeing the threads, because I have no interest in getting into the mud pit.

But I have argued against DGT with the other moderators. This is a personal opinion only, and I believe I expressed it that way.

I don't think DGT is appropriate or useful for the MOA to host on its forum. DGT does not make good advertising or a good impression on new members. (For example, does a thread titled "Would Hitler have been a Democrat?" seem like a friendly invitation to join?) This is entirely unlike the photography forum.

The MOA, and by extension, this forum, is about BMW motorcycles, riding and ownership. It's motto is "The Essential BMW Motorcycle Accessory". DGT had nothing to do with the MOA or its mission, and had quite the ability to turn people away from the club. I argued that there are plenty of other places already established to get one's fill of this kind of discussion.

Also, the MOA forum had been running for 4.5 years without DGT; it has required sequestering some threads and moderating some people over that time, and that seemed to keep things orderly. If anything, the new forum guidelines are even clearler than before, so reasonable people should understand what's appropriate. I saw no reason to have a place for this kind of discussion on the board.

As I said, I argued this as a matter of my personal opinion. I didn't moderate nor participate in DGT, but as a moderator, I could not avoid seeing what was going on in there.

Visian, the forum liason, serves at the pleasure of your elected board. The way to change the way the forum is run is to petition the Communications & Marketing committee, or if you're really unhappy, to run for the board and get on that committee. Seems like we have a dearth of people running for office this election cycle, so one must presume that a lot of people are satisfied with the way the club is going. If you aren't happy with the way the club is going, why aren't you running to change it?

 

[Roy.Jackson55@aol.com]

DGT is like an apartment dwelling insect that won't go away. Let me explain;
In large apartment complexes, some resident will bring in roaches, then lots of roaches will start to appear, skipping through the walls into the neighboring apartments. When the exterminator is finally called, entire ROWs of apartments will be fumed at once, and usually imeediate relief is found by the apartments that had the commercioal roach bombs set off. HOWEVER the next 20 apartments start to have a roach, problem; they simply moved!
Take DGT away, kill it, bury it and I assure you
it will rise up in other areas of the forum
you never thought possible.
Unless you weed out all the "malcontents" myself included (all 6 of em? HA! where did you learn to count?) and cancel our membership, burn our BMW MOA card,
your roach problem will continue....
why do you think the roach has been around for hundreds and thousands of years?
cause their smart? not necessarily..
They just (confound it mother nature!) they just are part of life, and part of this world!

The modern cockroach first appeared in the cretaceous period (approx. 145 million years ago) just to be historicly correct./

 

[Mongo]

Just because roaches have been around long before me and will be long after I'm gone, doesn't mean I want them in my house.

Just sayin'

 

[SNC1923]

Isn't this admitting that the original post was "trolling". Isn't trolling banned? Aren't intentional trollers banned? Where are the mods now?

What username did in his post is not trolling. Trolling is making provocative statements in an effort to draw someone into an angry debate. What username did was to employ a simple strategy to cause the iconoclasts to show their hands. Basically, they got punk'd.

 

[ted]

Hi Steve et al,

I did receive the PM and here is my non-sugar coated response.

I was against DGT from the beginning, in my many years of running and managing motorcycle communities I have always found without a doubt that the topics of religion, politics, and abortion bring out the very worst in people. There are many places on the Internet where these things can be fought over ad nauseam, and just as two guys around a campfire yelling about what Clinton or Bush did causes the rest to walk off shaking there heads, it has generated more ill will than just about anything I've come across yet.

I am glad we tried it, there are few things in life as refreshing as being righteously proven wrong. However, the forum followed the old road of devolving into petty arguments, trolls, insults and threats. Don't get me wrong, I love politics enough to have made it my livelihood, as history has always proven however, it is incredibly divisive and tends to bring out the worst in people.

Ian was given the authority to both try the forum, and as he had warned before it even opened, to shut it down if it strayed too far from the civilized exchange of ideas many had hoped for (it did, and he did.) Ian is not the final word however, and I would like to make some recommendations to you and others upset at its demise.

Remember this: The forum died because it devolved as mentioned above. The volunteer moderators, who became as frequent targets of insults, trolls and even threats as the posters, were spending increasing amounts of time trying to watch over it 24/7 and its ever increasing demands (and the ever increasing complaints about it.)

1. The pathway to concrete action is through the Board of Directors. We all elect them, and ultimately, they represent the interests of us all. If you want change (or un-change I guess) that is where to start. It may feel better and be easier right now to try and argue it out on this thread, but aside from a group of folks each trying to prove to another that he is the one who is right, it will not produce much more than a further erosion of the fellowship and fraternity we are supposed to be promoting.

2. Determine precisely what you want and approach the Board with a well-reasoned argument for it, and as ever in largely volunteer-based organizations, a detailed plan with the committed resources to put it into action. Personally I would start with the Communications Committee, but that is up to you.

3. Some ideas you might advance are:

a. a forum that is viewable and accessible only to those who have specifically requested access with at least one person willing and with the time to run it. If you want it moderated, have a few volunteers lined up and ready to start.

b. an open forum that is heavily moderated (and again, with moderators lined up and who can commit the time to tend it and tweak the guidelines as required.)

c. a mix of the two.

Like the others you have contacted, I am just a volunteer working to serve the membership of the MOA. We're no different than the hundreds of other volunteers that do everything from serve on the Board of Directors to serve beer at the Rally.

 

[testinglogin]

a. a forum that is viewable and accessible only to those who have specifically requested access with at least one person willing and with the time to run it. If you want it moderated, have a few volunteers lined up and ready to start.

I was thinking about something like this, last night. There is no way (as far as I could find) for me to choose which forums I can or can't see. That leaves the option that would be exactly like the "ambassador" or "club president" areas on the forum. They would be hidden, and access would need to be granted based on a request. I think that would be fine, although that leaves one issue. How do NEW members who might want access to DGT even find out about it? I guess a "sticky" could be posted saying "If you like to discuss politics and religion, please send a message to <user> to request access to that area". I'm not sure if that choice would be acceptable to the people who would like to see DGT stick around. If it is, that is a nice way of making everyone happy - people keep DGT, and others don't even have to see the latest forum thread topic when browsing the rest of the forums.

Finally, we need moderators for DGT, as I still feel it can't be "no holds barred". The question is, can we find impartial moderators who would like to moderate DGT? It appears some people are very interested in keeping DGT, so I would hope that a few would step forward to moderate that area. If so, we're set. From there, if people can debate reasonably, that's fine. If not, it could/should still be axed. Civility should still be required - no personal attacks, etc. Just because it would be hidden doesn't mean it should be "wild west".

IMHO.

 

[Rapid_Roy]

As a young lad , I lived on a farm. Without exception it was always the pig that caught in the closing gate that squealed the loudest.

I don't think that analogy is in the BMWMOA spirit

Karl, the very fact that I mentioned a mosh pit would mean I am familiar with it, I was just at an age where I never went in them.

 

[redclfco]

Just because roaches have been around long before me and will be long after I'm gone, doesn't mean I want them in my house.

Just sayin'

Too bad, they are already in your house, Hello!

 

[MOTOR31]

Ted, partially quoting your post here for illustrative purposes.

"3. Some ideas you might advance are:

a. a forum that is viewable and accessible only to those who have specifically requested access with at least one person willing and with the time to run it. If you want it moderated, have a few volunteers lined up and ready to start.

b. an open forum that is heavily moderated (and again, with moderators lined up and who can commit the time to tend it and tweak the guidelines as required.)

c. a mix of the two.

Like the others you have contacted, I am just a volunteer working to serve the membership of the MOA. We're no different than the hundreds of other volunteers that do everything from serve on the Board of Directors to serve beer at the Rally."



Frankly I thought that what you have posted was exactly what there was in DGT. The audience is already narrowed down to posting by members only in the forum. It was further narrowed down to those who specifically clicked to go to that section AWAY from the main forums.

Moderation was supposed to be moderate as the premise was for a more "free flowing" section of the forum to begin with. Those who were offended had to go out of their way to get to that section. It was not "in their face" and they didn't have to be exposed to a single post there in order to enjoy the rest of the forum.

What this has been is another example of some one's "vision" or "solution" to a really insignificant "problem". Just like life members are a drain on the club that option soon won't be available. The rally and the magazine can't be managed to pay for themselves so something has to go. Instead of fixing the parts that could pay for themselves, life memberships will simply go away. In other words don't get creative to add more to the club just take something else away.

The poll showed that of those who were interested enough to respond, more than 60% did not think that DGT "sucked". Yet the notice and explanation for why it went away was so grandly "explained" by saying "it sucked". Way to communicate there Ian. So much for the members opinions as expressed in the poll.

 

[Rapid_Roy]

....But then I thought, "you know, we have a couple of blowhard a$$hats on this forum. They like to troll and bully other people.

I don't think this comment is in the BMWMOA spirit. Open insults of people whose opinion you didn't agree with. I never felt threatened or bullied. Obviously, someone did.

I wonder if there is a fun way to both state and DEMONSTRATE exactly what is wrong with DGT." so I edited my note and removed the balance. I left only the "liberal" examples. And a couple of you jumped all over that and immediately began labeling me, jumping to conclusions, and roaring with indignation.

Thank you for demonstrating exactly why DGT is no longer available. That couldn't have gone more smoothly.

I really could care less what you had said, everybody is entitled to their opinion, aren't they? Anybody who gets that upset over words typed on the internet has lost touch with reality. They could also do it in person at a rally, and that is not in the spirit of the BMWMOA IMO.

There were indications some were upset at the mere titles of the threads, which indicates they didn't even actually read the discussions inside, where people discussed the whys and why nots.
Suppressing someones opinions because you don't agree with them also seems very wrong, and that is clearly what happened here. The mods did not work overtime because of the content of member's posts in the DGT,other than because of the PM's from people not liking the titles of the threads. I thank the forum for providing the opportunity to actually see the true attitudes here. It was very eye opening. I don't agree with the Nazi party one bit, but I feel they have a right to speak. I also have a right to listen and decide it's crap. I understand this is a private forum, I just didn't understand that meant we lost that right here because others disagree with opinions.

If that is truly the spirit of the BMWMOA, I am somewhat disenchanted. I also understand why we will not attract many younger members, it is a sure bet people will disagree with their opinions, and they will be silenced. That doesn't sound fun at all.

 

[statdawg]

What username did in his post is not trolling. Trolling is making provocative statements in an effort to draw someone into an angry debate. What username did was to employ a simple strategy to cause the iconoclasts to show their hands. Basically, they got punk'd.

Actually it means to attack someone's cherished beliefs. Another example of not being in the spirit of the MOA. I bet punked means kicked while down in California.

Since this thread is reflecting a division in the MOA. Why is it being allowed for total access by any prospected member to view ? This such as the anti-rally thread should be placed in the Clubhouse and away of impressionable prospects. Please secure the crime scene.


It think the abrupt ending of DGT is the main issue not its content or ones point of view. Furthermore right before a weekend no less. An action like this in government is termed a Friday slam. In that case a subordinate would receive a policy to be in effect weeks from now on a Friday afternoon. They would receive the policy to fume about over the weekend so by Monday and questions would seem pointless and easier to respond to. I applaud Ian's experiment I just question the abrupt ending and the wagon circling to distract attention away from its non-notification issue. DGT doesn't matter anyway it only effected 6 member trolls and ass-hats so who cares ?

The MOA status quo will prevail be it against Yellow Jacket Joe, SFDOC, Hodag vs Rob, Rally selection, gel batteries, MOA funds for unconventional events and the famous failure of the noble experiment DGT. Yet out of the bleakness there is hope of a another forum to satisfy an itch or as a baston of equality eluded to one can create their own.

 

[redclfco]

I don't think this comment is in the BMWMOA spirit. Open insults of people whose opinion you didn't agree with. I never felt threatened or bullied. Obviously, someone did.

I really could care less what you had said, everybody is entitled to their opinion, aren't they? Anybody who gets that upset over words typed on the internet has lost touch with reality. They could also do it in person at a rally, and that is not in the spirit of the BMWMOA IMO.

There were indications some were upset at the mere titles of the threads, which indicates they didn't even actually read the discussions inside, where people discussed the whys and why nots.
Suppressing someones opinions because you don't agree with them also seems very wrong, and that is clearly what happened here. The mods did not work overtime because of the content of member's posts in the DGT,other than because of the PM's from people not liking the titles of the threads. I thank the forum for providing the opportunity to actually see the true attitudes here. It was very eye opening. I don't agree with the Nazi party one bit, but I feel they have a right to speak. I also have a right to listen and decide it's crap. I understand this is a private forum, I just didn't understand that meant we lost that right here because others disagree with opinions.

If that is truly the spirit of the BMWMOA, I am somewhat disenchanted. I also understand why we will not attract many younger members, it is a sure bet people will disagree with their opinions, and they will be silenced. That doesn't sound fun at all.

+1

 

[Roy.Jackson55@aol.com]

+1

Looks like you have a problem. Try this

 

[redclfco]

uh oh heres another one

They are everywhere! And spreading!

I think many members just lurked, and browsed the DGT. Those who chose not to enter the fracas but enjoyed reading, those are the people that need to stand up and support the DGT. Sorry. I didn't want to comment, but the foundation is crumbling on this decision, the decision to kill, not modify the DGT. Some people didnt use it every day, but liked the notion er, the freedom to go there...why take it away?

I know I'm new and don't know all the history, but maybe just that fact allows me to look at it without the prejudice of familiarity. Resentment seems to stem from contrasting opinions on the ethics of this forum website..disfunction junction. give those who wish to pee in to the wind a place to do it! As long as it's contained within an area branded with a warning label, why YOU worry?

 

[Roy.Jackson55@aol.com]

They are everywhere! And spreading!

I think many members just lurked, and browsed the DGT. Those who chose not to enter the fracas but enjoyed reading, those are the people that need to stand up and support the DGT. Sorry. I didn't want to comment, but the foundation is crumbling on this decision, the decision to kill, not modify the DGT. Some people didnt use it every day, but liked the notion er, the freedom to go there...why take it away?

I know I'm new and don't know all the history, but maybe just that fact allows me to look at it without the prejudice of familiarity. Resentment seems to stem from contrasting opinions on the ethics of this forum website..disfunction junction. give those who wish to pee in to the wind a place to do it! As long as it's contained within an area branded with a warning label, why YOU worry?

+1 I lurked more than posted, my choice, now taken away, here's one vote to bring it back.

 

[mika]

What username did in his post is not trolling. Trolling is making provocative statements in an effort to draw someone into an angry debate. What username did was to employ a simple strategy to cause the iconoclasts to show their hands. Basically, they got punk'd.

Sorry but I need to get stronger glasses to split that hair. No matter what side of the argument your on I didn't think setting up fellow members to get 'punk'd' is what we think we are about around here.

 

[belquar]

What username did in his post is not trolling. Trolling is making provocative statements in an effort to draw someone into an angry debate. What username did was to employ a simple strategy to cause the iconoclasts to show their hands. Basically, they got punk'd.

I disagree. Had it just been posted and left well enough alone then fine, but coming back to show how "perfectly" the plan came together proves by admission that it was a troll.

As I said before...i don't care one way or other about the DGT but watching everyone get in a tizzy is fun. Kinda like lighting crap on fire just to watch it burn.

Did you know non-dairy coffee creamer is highly flammable?

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[rkasal]

We have a board member who has attacked another member in a forum in two instances. One in which the member asked an innocent question. Another instance in which the member made an innocent statement. No one else seemed to feel the member's statement was antagonistic except the apparently easily offended board member.

This same board member has a non-compliant sig line. Four lines instead of three. This may seem petty but the issue becomes the rules are not equally enforced.

As further evidence of this, we have a moderator who admitted engaging in deliberate trolling. That moderator who admitted doing such should not be allowed to continue moderating. That moderator also should suffer the same penalty as anyone else which I believe is a time-out.

When rules or laws are not equally enforced, anarchy results. Whether that is people leaving, leaving and starting a competing club, not participating, open revolting, it is difficult to predict how individuals or a group will act.

The other matter is, why should anyone have to petition a committee when it is apparent that the club does not care what the members want? Further, why should anyone petition a committee or "offer suggestions" when it is clear what the members want? People on both sides of the aisle and the middle want DGT.

The club has evolved and is growing.

I was told by friends of mine who are relatively long-time members but who do not participate in the forums that the club is not interested in what the members want. That the club does not listen.

Several weeks ago, I mistakenly defended the club's leaders against such a charge by another member - that the club does not listen. That was an error on my part. There are too many instances of a non-equal application of the rules and of dismissve attitudes to ignore it any longer. The club does not listen to the majority of members but instead, adheres to the totalitarian views of a small group.

It is time to change. The roaches will not go away.

 

[Mongo]

Too bad, they are already in your house, Hello!

Obviously, they are everywhere. I just prefer not to see them.

IMO if members want to talk politics, religion, etc, then talk politics, religion etc. DGT would be a good place to do it if done right. I don't have to go in the forum and read it if I don't want to. However Mods do. If they don't want to police it and if they don't want to read it because they are getting bashed there then buh, bye! Volunteers should not have to take abuse.

Come up with a plan, the volunteers to moderate it and present it instead of bashing the volunteers that don't want clean up your mess anymore.