>Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:19:35 +0200 (SAST)
>Subject: [ emerge2008 - Announcement ]   Facilitating Online Course - New
>  Version
>From: "Tony
>  Carr" <tony.carr@...>
>To: "emerge2008" <no-reply@...>
>
>An announcement has been updated in the "emerge2008" site at
>Emerge2008 (<http://emerge2008.net>http://emerge2008.net)
>
>
>Subject: Facilitating Online Course - New Version
>
>From: Tony Carr
>
>Date: 27-Nov-2009 14:19
>
>Message:
>
>Dear colleagues, Just a quick announcement about a new version of
>the Facilitating Online OER course resources including several minor
>corrections. This is available on our website at
><http://www.cet.uct.ac.za/FacilitatingOnline>http://www.cet.uct.ac.za/Facilitat\
ingOnline
>and thanks to the generosity of the Ford Foundation we have had a
>new print run of 750 copies. Facilitating Online is a course
>intended for training educators as online facilitators of fully
>online and mixed mode courses. The Centre for Educational Technology
>(CET) produced a Course Leader's Guide as an Open Educational
>Resource to assist educators and trainers who wish to implement a
>course on online facilitation within their institution or across
>several institutions. The course manual was written by Tony Carr,
>Shaheeda Jaffer and Jeanne Smuts and was published online and in
>print in early 2009. The guide contains the course model,
>week-by-week learning activities, general guidance to the course
>leader on how to implement and customise the course and specific
>guidelines on each learning activity. The latest version of the
>course manual includes several minor corrections and is dedicated to
>the memory of our co-author Jeanne Smuts who died on 28th July 2009.
>See <http://www.cet.uct.ac.za/FacilitatingOnline>Facilitating
>Online: A guide for course leaders for the latest pdf version of the
>course manual as well the specimen course site. The book is also
>available in print form at no charge. To request copies of the
>printed book please contact Shirley Rix at
><mailto:shirley.rix@...?subject>shirley.rix@.... Best
>wishes :) Tony
>
>This automatic notification message was sent by Emerge2008
>(<http://emerge2008.net>http://emerge2008.net) from the emerge2008
>site.You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
>Preferences.


Nancy White | Full Circle Associates | Connecting communities online
nancyw@... | +1 206 517 4754 | GMT - 8 |skype - choconancy |
Twitter NancyWhite
http://www.fullcirc.com/


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi,

I think this might be of interest for this mailing list members:
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/online-conflict-in-the-light-of-mimetic-theory/200\
9/11/25

My main thesis is that: "We can use the mimetic theory to: explain the
nature of on-line conflicts, understand how humanity copes with
conflicts off-line and try to copy the mechanisms on-line, interpret
currently used on-­line counter measures and inspire the development
of new techniques specially suited for the on-­line world"

Cheers,
Zbigniew Lukasiak
http://brudnopis.blogspot.com/
http://perlalchemy.blogspot.com/

Definitely an interesting discussion. I wanted to expand on my response,
which was hard to do from my phone earlier.

Banning the user wasn't an option in my sitch--the kid was successfully
hacking our servers and disabling our chat room (the contents of which were
part of live television programming). For whatever reason, our tech guys
couldn't block this guy, so I did a little sleuthing of my own to track the
kid down. I called his mother, and the problem stopped. His biggest shock
was probably that he wasn't so anonymous after all.

In any event, this tactic was used as a last resort. From what I've read in
the instant case, it seems like excessive force.  As someone else mentioned,
the more subtle approach of letting them know that you know who or where
they are should be enough to nip things in the bud. If that doesn't work,
then notify the school. But no matter how it's handled, gloating about it in
public is always bad form.

On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 9:07 AM, Anne Papina <annabananasf@...> wrote:

> It seems a little over the top to me too. I have only made contact
> once over an enormous amount of disruption that extended over a long
> period of time and even that was just to tell the kid's mommy. It
> seems a waste of energy to start hunting down every potty mouth
> poster.
>
>

--
Anne M. Papina
Author, Images of America: Nicasio
http://www.arcadiapublishing.com/book/0738558028
http://www.linkedin.com/in/papina


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I'm another lurker who reads most messages but contributes infrequently.  This
is indeed an interesting case.

My first thoughts were that several people must have been having a seriously bad
day on the day this happened, and I hope the employer of the person who got
fired had more evidence and more reason than simply what was mentioned in the
article.

I used to manage a public message board which eventually had to close because we
couldn't cope with the level of inappropriate content which was damaging the
reputation of the community, so I can in some ways sympathise with the
frustration of the moderator.  Public messages from the moderator don't make
much difference to those occasional users who are intent on showing how clever
or how stupid they are by posting abusive or blatantly commercial messages. 
However in this case it seems that the profanity filter caught the message in
question so no real harm was done.

I have taken the step of notifying an ISP that inappropriate messages have been
posted repeatedly from the same IP address - but my own tolerance level was
typically 10 or more times rather than just two.

I have certainly never considered informing an employer that a staff member had
made inappropriate use of their computer.  I suppose in the case of a school
asset there may be a case for child protection.  I think if I were moved to
contact an employer in this way I would never brag about the consequences as I
don't see that as being helpful for the community.

Every community has its own "personality" as does the moderator/facilitator. 
Clearly it is important to use judgement about what is best for the health of
the community in the unique relationship between a specific leader and a
specific community.  Personally I prefer to underplay the "power" which is
afforded to me by my status as leader of a community since I believe that
promotes richer and more authentic participation.

- Mark.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Heya all, I very rarely post on this group, although I keep an eye on
discussions, and this one got me thinking, so I hope you'll bear with me if I
bring my two cents.

Greenbaum's attitude, although I do not know him well and I'm sure he has many
qualities, really seems over the top on this to me. The problem is, I think,
that he treated differently a user because he was posting from a school.

First for it looks like an invasion of privacy, but also because it breaks the
equality to which posters are entitled. Either someone commits a criminal
offense, by swearing abusively, threatening, denying historical truths, calling
for hate crimes, and then the authorities should be called, or it's just a
"random" petty offense, and a user ban would be appropriate because of the
warning sent by the first message being deleted.

By bypassing the intervention of authorities, Greenbaum led the way to a
situation of inequitable justice, where the employer let the employee resign
when the latter had probably never imagined it could happen for this reason. His
message, inappropriate as it was, was not meant to be seen by his superiors, and
it says nothing about his working in a school. This is just Greenbaum's opinion,
and no real third party was involved between plaintiffs (Greenbaum and the
employer) and the defendant.

As a law student myself (in the once country of Human Rights), and also as a
former community moderator, this situation clearly looks like an abuse of power
and an invasion of privacy, and it should not be seen as an acceptable precedent
to me.

That's just my humble POV, but I'm open to other ideas !

--- In onlinefacilitation@yahoogroups.com, Amy Lenzo <alenzo@...> wrote:
>
> The only way I would personally justify aggressively trying to find out a
> poster¹s identity would be if they were posing threatening behavior to a
> child or convincingly threatening physical harm or someone¹s life. But I
> don¹t get why it would ever have to go that far because I would just ban
> someone who was obvious that far off their meds.
>
> But what do others think?
>
>
>
> Nancy White11/22/09 7:53 PM
>
> > Belatedly chiming in - a very interesting case
> > and one that IS worth discussion.
> >
> > What are the ethics of going beyond the moderation ON the site?
> >
> > What are your policies where you might have this role?
> >
> > When would you see it justifiable to follow up as
> > this guy did (i.e. a death threat?) When not?
> >
> > what are our ethics here?
> >
> > N
> >
> > At 09:07 AM 11/18/2009, you wrote:
> >> >It seems a little over the top to me too. I have only made contact
> >> >once over an enormous amount of disruption that extended over a long
> >> >period of time and even that was just to tell the kid's mommy. It
> >> >seems a waste of energy to start hunting down every potty mouth
> >> >poster.
> >> >
> >> >On 11/18/09, Tari Akpodiete <TariAkpodiete@...
> >> <mailto:TariAkpodiete%40gmail.com> > wrote:
> >>> > > I think this is an incredibly important issue and worth consideration
> >>> > > and discussion:
>
> ...o0o...
> The BEAUTY DIALOGUES:
> http://www.beautydialogues.com/
>
> ³We must live our lives in such a way that the splendor of our lives, the
> passion of our lives and the beauty of our lives reaches out in a flame of
> divine passion that awakens the divine passion in others.²
> ~ Andrew Harvey
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

--- On Mon, 11/23/09, Amy Lenzo <alenzo@...> wrote:

From: Amy Lenzo <alenzo@...>
Subject: Re: [of] Comment behaviour: How far is too far?
To: onlinefacilitation@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, November 23, 2009, 10:09 AM


       The only way I would personally justify aggressively trying to find out a
poster¹s identity would be if they were posing threatening behavior to a child
or convincingly threatening physical harm or someone¹s life. But I don¹t get why
it would ever have to go that far because I would just ban someone who was
obvious that far off their meds.

But what do others think?


I totally would ban someone if it was repeated behavior, and indeed, used to,
when I ran JewishJournal.com

In StL, person couldn't be banned by IP address, because it would have blocked
the entire school and couldn't be banned by login-info since the site didn't
require registration before posting and the poster used a fake email address.

Faced with a similar sketchy situation, I pointed out in a public reply that
maybe it wasn't a good idea to use school computers to post nasty words -- in
this case it was a previously banned poster using his wife's login from a Los
Angeles Unified School District workstation.

Thankfully, he got the hint.

D

I work in a school and I would want to know if a student was acting
inappropriately at school.  It is all part of learning how to be a
citizen and if we don't know when a student is going off of the rails
or acting inappropriately, we can't help them learn. I expect our
community to support us with this.

The person who did the wrong thing was using school resources to do
this.  It does reflect on the school.  The adults are supposed to be
modeling appropriate behavior for students.

I'm not sure that terminating employment is the course of action that
should be taken but digging deeper, they may have been other issues.
Who knows?

This goes further than OF ethics and asks us to think about our roles
in helping schools do their job.

Peter

2009/11/18 Tari Akpodiete <TariAkpodiete@...>:
> I think this is an incredibly important issue and worth consideration
> and discussion:
>
> ----------
>
> Comment behaviour: How far is too far?
>
http://www.mathewingram.com/work/2009/11/18/comment-behaviour-how-far-is-too-far\
/
> by Mathew on November 18, 2009
>
> ----------
>
> SPECIAL NOTE: I'm going to replicate the post here for easier those on
> blackberries, etc. Do note that the body of the article contains a
> number of links to the sites mentioned. I know Mathew personally and I
> don't believe he'd mind.
>
> ----------
>
> As someone whose job involves thinking about our social-media policies
> and our approach to comment behaviour, I’m always looking at what
> other newspapers and media outlets are doing, and today I came across
> a case that crossed a line — for me, at least — in terms of how to
> deal with problem commenters. It involved a vulgar comment made by a
> user at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s website, and the response by the
> site’s director of social media, Kurt Greenbaum.
>
> According to Greenbaum’s blog post (which was mirrored on his personal
> blog), someone posted a comment on a story in which they used a
> colloquial or slang term for female genitalia. It was deleted, but
> then was reposted. Greenbaum says he noticed that the comment alert
> from Wordpress showed that it came from a nearby school. So Greenbaum
> called the school, and they asked him to send them the email with the
> comment, which he apparently did. About six hours later, he says, the
> school called and said that an employee had been confronted and that
> he had resigned.
>
> Am I the only one who thinks that doing this goes way beyond the
> normal course of editorial behaviour? I’ve been moderating blog
> comments and story comments for several years now, both as a blogger
> and as the Globe and Mail’s social-media editor (or Communities
> Editor, as we call the job), and there is no way that I would contact
> someone’s workplace about a comment unless they had done something
> extremely egregious — such as making death threats, or repeatedly
> making abusive comments.
>
> We’ve had hundreds or even thousands of such comments, most of which
> are much worse than the one Greenbaum is talking about, and I have
> never contacted someone’s workplace, even when it was obvious that the
> person in question worked for the federal government.
>
> I know I’m not the only one to see Greenbaum’s behaviour as
> over-the-top, because a number of people agreed with me on Twitter
> when I asked the same question, and just as many or more took the
> social-media editor to task in the comments on his blog post. One
> commenter said:
>
> “You guys don’t like moderating so you call his work and get him
> fired. Nice. Happy holidays.”
>
> to which Greenbaum replied:
>
> “Yeah, you caught me! I made him log on to his computer at work, visit
> STLtoday.com’s Talk of the Day, read the item, type a vulgarity and
> hit the “submit” key. Interesting perspective. Thanks for your
> contribution.”
>
> Other readers said:
>
> “What an abuse of power, Mr. Greenbaum!!! So is the Post Dispatch now
> a Gestapo Agent? What a sick and terrible thing you did to this
> employee in an economy where he probably doesn’t stand a chance in
> getting another job! I recommend that YOU get fired for abuse of
> power!!!!! See how YOU feel!!!”
>
> and
>
> “YOU are the director of social media? tools to be leveraged to get
> businesses closer to their customers? what an awful story and it’s
> even more embarassing that you squawk about it after the fact. the
> lesson is: be careful StlToday website visitors - never know when a
> bored employee will pursue some bizarre investigation that could cost
> you your job.”
>
> and Greenbaum replies:
>
> “Defend the guy who posted the vulgarity all you want. I’m not
> regulating someone’s thought. He can think whatever he wants. I’m
> moderating our boards. Follow our guidelines and this won’t be a
> problem for any of you. Remember, I said it was a school, right? It
> could have been a student. I didn’t know who it was. I just thought
> the school might like to know about it. I sleep fine at night.”
>
> What do you think of what Greenbaum did in this case? Did he overstep
> his bounds as the moderator of the St. Louis Today site, or do you
> think he was justified in what he did? Let me know in the comments.
>
> ----------
>
> The article was just posted and already there are 21 comments.
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> to unsubscribe: <mailto:onlinefacilitation-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com>
>
> http://www.fullcirc.com/community/communitymanual.htm
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>



--
Free and Open education for all

Peter Ruwoldt
Grant High School
Hosking Avenue
MOUNT GAMBIER  SA  5290

P. 08 87263128
F. 08 87250173

ruwoldtp@...
http://www.watiwara.com

from Richard Millington - @richmillington

Why Amateurs Build Better Online Communities Than Businesses
http://www.feverbee.com/2009/11/amateurs.html
- "There are few successful online communities founded by businesses.
Amateurs usually do it better."

The only way I would personally justify aggressively trying to find out a
poster¹s identity would be if they were posing threatening behavior to a
child or convincingly threatening physical harm or someone¹s life. But I
don¹t get why it would ever have to go that far because I would just ban
someone who was obvious that far off their meds.

But what do others think?



Nancy White11/22/09 7:53 PM

> Belatedly chiming in - a very interesting case
> and one that IS worth discussion.
>
> What are the ethics of going beyond the moderation ON the site?
>
> What are your policies where you might have this role?
>
> When would you see it justifiable to follow up as
> this guy did (i.e. a death threat?) When not?
>
> what are our ethics here?
>
> N
>
> At 09:07 AM 11/18/2009, you wrote:
>> >It seems a little over the top to me too. I have only made contact
>> >once over an enormous amount of disruption that extended over a long
>> >period of time and even that was just to tell the kid's mommy. It
>> >seems a waste of energy to start hunting down every potty mouth
>> >poster.
>> >
>> >On 11/18/09, Tari Akpodiete <TariAkpodiete@...
>> <mailto:TariAkpodiete%40gmail.com> > wrote:
>>> > > I think this is an incredibly important issue and worth consideration
>>> > > and discussion:

...o0o...
The BEAUTY DIALOGUES:
http://www.beautydialogues.com/

³We must live our lives in such a way that the splendor of our lives, the
passion of our lives and the beauty of our lives reaches out in a flame of
divine passion that awakens the divine passion in others.²
~ Andrew Harvey





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Belatedly chiming in - a very interesting case
and one that IS worth discussion.

What are the ethics of going beyond the moderation ON the site?

What are your policies where you might have this role?

When would you see it justifiable to follow up as
this guy did (i.e. a death threat?) When not?

what are our ethics here?

N

At 09:07 AM 11/18/2009, you wrote:
>It seems a little over the top to me too. I have only made contact
>once over an enormous amount of disruption that extended over a long
>period of time and even that was just to tell the kid's mommy. It
>seems a waste of energy to start hunting down every potty mouth
>poster.
>
>On 11/18/09, Tari Akpodiete <TariAkpodiete@...> wrote:
> > I think this is an incredibly important issue and worth consideration
> > and discussion:
> >
> > ----------
> >
> > Comment behaviour: How far is too far?
> >
>
http://www.mathewingram.com/work/2009/11/18/comment-behaviour-how-far-is-too-far\
/
> > by Mathew on November 18, 2009
> >
> > ----------
> >
> > SPECIAL NOTE: I'm going to replicate the post here for easier those on
> > blackberries, etc. Do note that the body of the article contains a
> > number of links to the sites mentioned. I know Mathew personally and I
> > don't believe he'd mind.
> >
> > ----------
> >
> > As someone whose job involves thinking about our social-media policies
> > and our approach to comment behaviour, I’m always looking at what
> > other newspapers and media outlets are doing, and today I came across
> > a case that crossed a line — for me, at least — in terms of how to
> > deal with problem commenters. It involved a vulgar comment made by a
> > user at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s website, and the response by the
> > site’s director of social media, Kurt Greenbaum.
> >
> > According to Greenbaum’s blog post (which was mirrored on his personal
> > blog), someone posted a comment on a story in which they used a
> > colloquial or slang term for female genitalia. It was deleted, but
> > then was reposted. Greenbaum says he noticed that the comment alert
> > from Wordpress showed that it came from a nearby school. So Greenbaum
> > called the school, and they asked him to send them the email with the
> > comment, which he apparently did. About six hours later, he says, the
> > school called and said that an employee had been confronted and that
> > he had resigned.
> >
> > Am I the only one who thinks that doing this goes way beyond the
> > normal course of editorial behaviour? I’ve been moderating blog
> > comments and story comments for several years now, both as a blogger
> > and as the Globe and Mail’s social-media editor (or Communities
> > Editor, as we call the job), and there is no way that I would contact
> > someone’s workplace about a comment unless they had done something
> > extremely egregious — such as making death threats, or repeatedly
> > making abusive comments.
> >
> > We’ve had hundreds or even thousands of such comments, most of which
> > are much worse than the one Greenbaum is talking about, and I have
> > never contacted someone’s workplace, even when it was obvious that the
> > person in question worked for the federal government.
> >
> > I know I’m not the only one to see Greenbaum’s behaviour as
> > over-the-top, because a number of people agreed with me on Twitter
> > when I asked the same question, and just as many or more took the
> > social-media editor to task in the comments on his blog post. One
> > commenter said:
> >
> > “You guys don’t like moderating so you call his work and get him
> > fired. Nice. Happy holidays.”
> >
> > to which Greenbaum replied:
> >
> > “Yeah, you caught me! I made him log on to his computer at work, visit
> > STLtoday.com’s Talk of the Day, read the item, type a vulgarity and
> > hit the “submit” key. Interesting perspective. Thanks for your
> > contribution.”
> >
> > Other readers said:
> >
> > “What an abuse of power, Mr. Greenbaum!!! So is the Post Dispatch now
> > a Gestapo Agent? What a sick and terrible thing you did to this
> > employee in an economy where he probably doesn’t stand a chance in
> > getting another job! I recommend that YOU get fired for abuse of
> > power!!!!! See how YOU feel!!!”
> >
> > and
> >
> > “YOU are the director of social media? tools to be leveraged to get
> > businesses closer to their customers? what an awful story and it’s
> > even more embarassing that you squawk about it after the fact. the
> > lesson is: be careful StlToday website visitors - never know when a
> > bored employee will pursue some bizarre investigation that could cost
> > you your job.”
> >
> > and Greenbaum replies:
> >
> > “Defend the guy who posted the vulgarity all you want. I’m not
> > regulating someone’s thought. He can think whatever he wants. I’m
> > moderating our boards. Follow our guidelines and this won’t be a
> > problem for any of you. Remember, I said it was a school, right? It
> > could have been a student. I didn’t know who it was. I just thought
> > the school might like to know about it. I sleep fine at night.”
> >
> > What do you think of what Greenbaum did in this case? Did he overstep
> > his bounds as the moderator of the St. Louis Today site, or do you
> > think he was justified in what he did? Let me know in the comments.
> >
> > ----------
> >
> > The article was just posted and already there are 21 comments.
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------
> >
> > to unsubscribe: <mailto:onlinefacilitation-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com>
> >
> > http://www.fullcirc.com/community/communitymanual.htm
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>--
>Sent from my mobile device
>
>Anne M. Papina
>Author, Images of America: Nicasio
>http://www.arcadiapublishing.com/book/0738558028
>http://www.linkedin.com/in/papina
>
>
>------------------------------------
>
>to unsubscribe: <mailto:onlinefacilitation-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com>
>
>http://www.fullcirc.com/community/communitymanual.htm
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

Nancy White | Full Circle Associates | Connecting communities online
nancyw@... | +1 206 517 4754 | GMT - 8
|skype - choconancy | Twitter NancyWhite
http://www.fullcirc.com/

Thank you for sharing, Tari.  this is an unbelievable unfolding of unfortunate
events, where nobody wins.
 
Sincerely


Jane Horan
www.thehorangroup.com
+65 9072 7832

--- On Wed, 11/18/09, Tari Akpodiete <TariAkpodiete@...> wrote:


From: Tari Akpodiete <TariAkpodiete@...>
Subject: [of] part 2 re job loss over site comments
To: onlinefacilitation@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, November 18, 2009, 6:35 PM


This is going to be hard to believe. The article with the
inappropriate comment post was about the strangest thing that one has
eaten. The person's comment was a single word, the 'c-word' which is a
vulgar comment for a certain area of the female anatomy. From what I
understand, that comment was deleted and then it was reposted. The
person works at a school which was contacted, and when they were
confronted, they allegedly resigned of their own volition. The
moderator then publicly gloated and even did a little mocking in the
comments (151 so far). What's also interesting is where all this took
place - St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Post a vulgar comment while you’re at work, lose your job -
http://bit.ly/3LvchP
By Kurt Greenbaum, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

A single vulgar word cost a man his job on Friday.

It all started with Friday’s edition of Talk of the Day, a regular
blog on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s website, STLtoday.com. Talk of
the Day is exactly that. A conversation around the water-cooler topic
of the day. Friday’s edition is often a little lighter. Last week, it
was about the strangest things you’ve ever eaten, loosely pegged on a
story about deer meat.

By mid-morning, a number of folks had commented about their
experiences with Bird’s Nest Soup, octopus, cow brains and
rattlesnake. Then, while I was in our 10 a.m. news meeting, someone
posted in reply a single word, a vulgar expression for a part of a
woman’s anatomy. It was there only a minute before a colleague deleted
it.

A few minutes later, the same guy posted the same single-word comment
again. I deleted it, but noticed in the WordPress e-mail alert that
his comment had come from an IP address at a local school. So I called
the school. They were happy to have me forward the e-mail, though I
wasn’t sure what they’d be able to do with the meager information it
included.

About six hours later, I heard from the school’s headmaster. The
school’s IT director took a shine to the challenge. Long story short:
Using the time-frame of the comments, our website location and the IP
addresses in the WordPress e-mail, he tracked it back to a specific
computer. The headmaster confronted the employee, who resigned on the
spot.

I’m not identifying the guy who posted the comment because, obviously,
I don’t know who it was. I’m not identifying the school because,
frankly, it’s not important to the story and I have no interest in
embarrassing the people there.


------------------------------------

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Yahoo! Groups Links








[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

It seems a little over the top to me too. I have only made contact
once over an enormous amount of disruption that extended over a long
period of time and even that was just to tell the kid's mommy. It
seems a waste of energy to start hunting down every potty mouth
poster.

On 11/18/09, Tari Akpodiete <TariAkpodiete@...> wrote:
> I think this is an incredibly important issue and worth consideration
> and discussion:
>
> ----------
>
> Comment behaviour: How far is too far?
>
http://www.mathewingram.com/work/2009/11/18/comment-behaviour-how-far-is-too-far\
/
> by Mathew on November 18, 2009
>
> ----------
>
> SPECIAL NOTE: I'm going to replicate the post here for easier those on
> blackberries, etc. Do note that the body of the article contains a
> number of links to the sites mentioned. I know Mathew personally and I
> don't believe he'd mind.
>
> ----------
>
> As someone whose job involves thinking about our social-media policies
> and our approach to comment behaviour, I’m always looking at what
> other newspapers and media outlets are doing, and today I came across
> a case that crossed a line — for me, at least — in terms of how to
> deal with problem commenters. It involved a vulgar comment made by a
> user at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s website, and the response by the
> site’s director of social media, Kurt Greenbaum.
>
> According to Greenbaum’s blog post (which was mirrored on his personal
> blog), someone posted a comment on a story in which they used a
> colloquial or slang term for female genitalia. It was deleted, but
> then was reposted. Greenbaum says he noticed that the comment alert
> from Wordpress showed that it came from a nearby school. So Greenbaum
> called the school, and they asked him to send them the email with the
> comment, which he apparently did. About six hours later, he says, the
> school called and said that an employee had been confronted and that
> he had resigned.
>
> Am I the only one who thinks that doing this goes way beyond the
> normal course of editorial behaviour? I’ve been moderating blog
> comments and story comments for several years now, both as a blogger
> and as the Globe and Mail’s social-media editor (or Communities
> Editor, as we call the job), and there is no way that I would contact
> someone’s workplace about a comment unless they had done something
> extremely egregious — such as making death threats, or repeatedly
> making abusive comments.
>
> We’ve had hundreds or even thousands of such comments, most of which
> are much worse than the one Greenbaum is talking about, and I have
> never contacted someone’s workplace, even when it was obvious that the
> person in question worked for the federal government.
>
> I know I’m not the only one to see Greenbaum’s behaviour as
> over-the-top, because a number of people agreed with me on Twitter
> when I asked the same question, and just as many or more took the
> social-media editor to task in the comments on his blog post. One
> commenter said:
>
> “You guys don’t like moderating so you call his work and get him
> fired. Nice. Happy holidays.”
>
> to which Greenbaum replied:
>
> “Yeah, you caught me! I made him log on to his computer at work, visit
> STLtoday.com’s Talk of the Day, read the item, type a vulgarity and
> hit the “submit” key. Interesting perspective. Thanks for your
> contribution.”
>
> Other readers said:
>
> “What an abuse of power, Mr. Greenbaum!!! So is the Post Dispatch now
> a Gestapo Agent? What a sick and terrible thing you did to this
> employee in an economy where he probably doesn’t stand a chance in
> getting another job! I recommend that YOU get fired for abuse of
> power!!!!! See how YOU feel!!!”
>
> and
>
> “YOU are the director of social media? tools to be leveraged to get
> businesses closer to their customers? what an awful story and it’s
> even more embarassing that you squawk about it after the fact. the
> lesson is: be careful StlToday website visitors - never know when a
> bored employee will pursue some bizarre investigation that could cost
> you your job.”
>
> and Greenbaum replies:
>
> “Defend the guy who posted the vulgarity all you want. I’m not
> regulating someone’s thought. He can think whatever he wants. I’m
> moderating our boards. Follow our guidelines and this won’t be a
> problem for any of you. Remember, I said it was a school, right? It
> could have been a student. I didn’t know who it was. I just thought
> the school might like to know about it. I sleep fine at night.”
>
> What do you think of what Greenbaum did in this case? Did he overstep
> his bounds as the moderator of the St. Louis Today site, or do you
> think he was justified in what he did? Let me know in the comments.
>
> ----------
>
> The article was just posted and already there are 21 comments.
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> to unsubscribe: <mailto:onlinefacilitation-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com>
>
> http://www.fullcirc.com/community/communitymanual.htm
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

--
Sent from my mobile device

Anne M. Papina
Author, Images of America: Nicasio
http://www.arcadiapublishing.com/book/0738558028
http://www.linkedin.com/in/papina

This is going to be hard to believe. The article with the
inappropriate comment post was about the strangest thing that one has
eaten. The person's comment was a single word, the 'c-word' which is a
vulgar comment for a certain area of the female anatomy. From what I
understand, that comment was deleted and then it was reposted. The
person works at a school which was contacted, and when they were
confronted, they allegedly resigned of their own volition. The
moderator then publicly gloated and even did a little mocking in the
comments (151 so far). What's also interesting is where all this took
place - St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Post a vulgar comment while you’re at work, lose your job - http://bit.ly/3LvchP
By Kurt Greenbaum, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

A single vulgar word cost a man his job on Friday.

It all started with Friday’s edition of Talk of the Day, a regular
blog on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s website, STLtoday.com. Talk of
the Day is exactly that. A conversation around the water-cooler topic
of the day. Friday’s edition is often a little lighter. Last week, it
was about the strangest things you’ve ever eaten, loosely pegged on a
story about deer meat.

By mid-morning, a number of folks had commented about their
experiences with Bird’s Nest Soup, octopus, cow brains and
rattlesnake. Then, while I was in our 10 a.m. news meeting, someone
posted in reply a single word, a vulgar expression for a part of a
woman’s anatomy. It was there only a minute before a colleague deleted
it.

A few minutes later, the same guy posted the same single-word comment
again. I deleted it, but noticed in the WordPress e-mail alert that
his comment had come from an IP address at a local school. So I called
the school. They were happy to have me forward the e-mail, though I
wasn’t sure what they’d be able to do with the meager information it
included.

About six hours later, I heard from the school’s headmaster. The
school’s IT director took a shine to the challenge. Long story short:
Using the time-frame of the comments, our website location and the IP
addresses in the WordPress e-mail, he tracked it back to a specific
computer. The headmaster confronted the employee, who resigned on the
spot.

I’m not identifying the guy who posted the comment because, obviously,
I don’t know who it was. I’m not identifying the school because,
frankly, it’s not important to the story and I have no interest in
embarrassing the people there.

I think this is an incredibly important issue and worth consideration
and discussion:

----------

Comment behaviour: How far is too far?
http://www.mathewingram.com/work/2009/11/18/comment-behaviour-how-far-is-too-far\
/
by Mathew on November 18, 2009

----------

SPECIAL NOTE: I'm going to replicate the post here for easier those on
blackberries, etc. Do note that the body of the article contains a
number of links to the sites mentioned. I know Mathew personally and I
don't believe he'd mind.

----------

As someone whose job involves thinking about our social-media policies
and our approach to comment behaviour, I’m always looking at what
other newspapers and media outlets are doing, and today I came across
a case that crossed a line — for me, at least — in terms of how to
deal with problem commenters. It involved a vulgar comment made by a
user at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s website, and the response by the
site’s director of social media, Kurt Greenbaum.

According to Greenbaum’s blog post (which was mirrored on his personal
blog), someone posted a comment on a story in which they used a
colloquial or slang term for female genitalia. It was deleted, but
then was reposted. Greenbaum says he noticed that the comment alert
from Wordpress showed that it came from a nearby school. So Greenbaum
called the school, and they asked him to send them the email with the
comment, which he apparently did. About six hours later, he says, the
school called and said that an employee had been confronted and that
he had resigned.

Am I the only one who thinks that doing this goes way beyond the
normal course of editorial behaviour? I’ve been moderating blog
comments and story comments for several years now, both as a blogger
and as the Globe and Mail’s social-media editor (or Communities
Editor, as we call the job), and there is no way that I would contact
someone’s workplace about a comment unless they had done something
extremely egregious — such as making death threats, or repeatedly
making abusive comments.

We’ve had hundreds or even thousands of such comments, most of which
are much worse than the one Greenbaum is talking about, and I have
never contacted someone’s workplace, even when it was obvious that the
person in question worked for the federal government.

I know I’m not the only one to see Greenbaum’s behaviour as
over-the-top, because a number of people agreed with me on Twitter
when I asked the same question, and just as many or more took the
social-media editor to task in the comments on his blog post. One
commenter said:

“You guys don’t like moderating so you call his work and get him
fired. Nice. Happy holidays.”

to which Greenbaum replied:

“Yeah, you caught me! I made him log on to his computer at work, visit
STLtoday.com’s Talk of the Day, read the item, type a vulgarity and
hit the “submit” key. Interesting perspective. Thanks for your
contribution.”

Other readers said:

“What an abuse of power, Mr. Greenbaum!!! So is the Post Dispatch now
a Gestapo Agent? What a sick and terrible thing you did to this
employee in an economy where he probably doesn’t stand a chance in
getting another job! I recommend that YOU get fired for abuse of
power!!!!! See how YOU feel!!!”

and

“YOU are the director of social media? tools to be leveraged to get
businesses closer to their customers? what an awful story and it’s
even more embarassing that you squawk about it after the fact. the
lesson is: be careful StlToday website visitors - never know when a
bored employee will pursue some bizarre investigation that could cost
you your job.”

and Greenbaum replies:

“Defend the guy who posted the vulgarity all you want. I’m not
regulating someone’s thought. He can think whatever he wants. I’m
moderating our boards. Follow our guidelines and this won’t be a
problem for any of you. Remember, I said it was a school, right? It
could have been a student. I didn’t know who it was. I just thought
the school might like to know about it. I sleep fine at night.”

What do you think of what Greenbaum did in this case? Did he overstep
his bounds as the moderator of the St. Louis Today site, or do you
think he was justified in what he did? Let me know in the comments.

----------

The article was just posted and already there are 21 comments.

I'm on and have been in some groups where people are trying to figure
out applications in NGO knowledge management, distributed learning,
but I have not seen any e-participation waves. It is still early in
the application, and certainly waaaaay geeky for a public trial, but
the experimentation and thinking about possibilities is really useful.

I'm nancy.white at gmail dot com on Wave. At the moment, I've given
out all my invites, but if you want one, send me an OFFLIST message
with the desired email address and I'll give out more as soon as I get more.

Nancy

At 06:33 PM 10/28/2009, you wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I see some potential in Google Wave as a tool for e-participation,
>specifically (facilitated) online dialogue and deliberation.
>
>I've created a wave to explore the use cases together:
>
>https://wave.google.com/wave/#restored:wave:googlewave.com!w%252BO_zF-kjmB
>
>If any of you have already gotten your Wave invites and are
>interested in this subject, just contact me with your Google Wave
>account information and I'll add you. I'd be very interested to
>learn more about online facilitators' take on Wave.
>
>Thanks,
>Tim
>
>PS: And sorry about accidentally hitting "send" prematurely... in
>Wave I could have just gone back and made the missing edits rather
>than having to resend this message. Oh well...  ;-)
>
>
>
>--- In onlinefacilitation@yahoogroups.com, "planspark" <tim@...> wrote:
> >
> > Hi
> >
> >
> http://www.intellitics.com/blog/2009/10/27/e-participation-with-google-wave/
> >
>
>
>
>
>------------------------------------
>
>to unsubscribe: <mailto:onlinefacilitation-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com>
>
>http://www.fullcirc.com/community/communitymanual.htm
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

Nancy White | Full Circle Associates | Connecting communities online
nancyw@... | +1 206 517 4754 | GMT - 8 |skype - choconancy |
Twitter NancyWhite
http://www.fullcirc.com/