VegaNova
12-01-2011, 04:50 PM
Apparently it's that time of year again. It might be worth everyone's time to read both our Code of Conduct (http://www.showbizpizzaforum.com/showthread.php?5550-Code-of-Conduct-for-Forum-Members) and Disciplinary Code (http://www.showbizpizzaforum.com/showthread.php?5549-Disciplinary-Code-for-Forum-Members), along with last year's annual rant (http://www.showbizpizzaforum.com/showthread.php?5824-A-jolly-quick-reminder....) about the behavior of our members.
There's an issue at hand regarding underage members constantly signing up for accounts and essentially annoying everyone with posts that either go nowhere or are barely legible to begin with. Our policy at restricting membership based on age is mainly to protect kids (and attempt to act as a buffer against parents who don't parent), and also to protect our dedicated fanbase from dispersing due to constant irritation. However, our system isn't sophisticated enough to keep kids out, and we (obviously) don't catch everything in time when a problem arises. There's a topic ongoing about how to handle this, that can be found by clicking here (http://www.showbizpizzaforum.com/showthread.php?7074-Can-we-bump-up-the-age-restriction) - feel free to chime in your thoughts since this is a matter we would like input on.
Now the reason for this post is that an underage person signed up for an account recently and was more or less chased off. While I can understand everyone's frustration (because this is FAR from the first time this has happened), it wasn't handled correctly by our members. After the kid claimed to be autistic he was berated for it, again likely out of disbelief or frustration that existed because of the illegible grammar and exhibited child-like signs. Still shouldn't have happened. We have moderators and admins that can ban and hand out infractions, we have ways for members to report posts and threads, we have tools to fix things without everyone going vigilante and bullying.
That being said, this whole thing has become blown completely out of proportion - anyone needing any proof of that can feel free to check out the wall on our FB page, or the official CEC page on FB, because like a cancer it has aimlessly bled onto there as well. Now, to some it may make sense to fight cyber-bullying with, well... cyber-bullying. When seeing some of the acid thrown by the relatives / friends of the "victim" here, I actually kinda feel bad for him. I can only dumb things down so far, and when we state time and again, that we are NOT affiliated with Chuck E. Cheese's some people just don't get it. Or they don't know how to read. Or they don't care and think with emotion and not their heads. I don't even know.
The simple fact of the matter is that, as everyone here knows, we have several members - likely dozens - who have disabilities that fall within the autism spectrum. You can almost argue that without our autistic members, we would barely have a community at all. So the idea that we're being painted as anti-autistic is both insane and downright stupid in my eyes. It's simply not true and the biggest angry-mob of parents will never convince me otherwise. All of this confusion over one isolated, mistake of an incidence.
Anyway, this is becoming a crappy PR issue that I need to deal with, and that's mostly because some of our members got out of hand. Another instance of someone else's lack of control becoming something I myself need to deal with and fix. That makes me not a happy camper. So here's my temporary solution - instead of venting your frustration at members that irritate us, just block them. There's a little box on every members profile page that, with the click of a button, will hide them from your view. So that way you won't ever hav too reed posts that u kant mak sense of an understaand.
http://www.showbizpizza.com/temp/better.jpg
See? Problem solved. No drama for Travis to have to waste his time dealing with, when he could be finishing up that CV6 disc that's 2 years overdue.
Anyway infractions will be handed out to those who took part in this recent hazing - even if I understand the level of frustration, that was a shoddy way of dealing with it and other roads could have been taken instead of bullying (which our COC actually forbids). Let's class it up a bit people! B-)
There's an issue at hand regarding underage members constantly signing up for accounts and essentially annoying everyone with posts that either go nowhere or are barely legible to begin with. Our policy at restricting membership based on age is mainly to protect kids (and attempt to act as a buffer against parents who don't parent), and also to protect our dedicated fanbase from dispersing due to constant irritation. However, our system isn't sophisticated enough to keep kids out, and we (obviously) don't catch everything in time when a problem arises. There's a topic ongoing about how to handle this, that can be found by clicking here (http://www.showbizpizzaforum.com/showthread.php?7074-Can-we-bump-up-the-age-restriction) - feel free to chime in your thoughts since this is a matter we would like input on.
Now the reason for this post is that an underage person signed up for an account recently and was more or less chased off. While I can understand everyone's frustration (because this is FAR from the first time this has happened), it wasn't handled correctly by our members. After the kid claimed to be autistic he was berated for it, again likely out of disbelief or frustration that existed because of the illegible grammar and exhibited child-like signs. Still shouldn't have happened. We have moderators and admins that can ban and hand out infractions, we have ways for members to report posts and threads, we have tools to fix things without everyone going vigilante and bullying.
That being said, this whole thing has become blown completely out of proportion - anyone needing any proof of that can feel free to check out the wall on our FB page, or the official CEC page on FB, because like a cancer it has aimlessly bled onto there as well. Now, to some it may make sense to fight cyber-bullying with, well... cyber-bullying. When seeing some of the acid thrown by the relatives / friends of the "victim" here, I actually kinda feel bad for him. I can only dumb things down so far, and when we state time and again, that we are NOT affiliated with Chuck E. Cheese's some people just don't get it. Or they don't know how to read. Or they don't care and think with emotion and not their heads. I don't even know.
The simple fact of the matter is that, as everyone here knows, we have several members - likely dozens - who have disabilities that fall within the autism spectrum. You can almost argue that without our autistic members, we would barely have a community at all. So the idea that we're being painted as anti-autistic is both insane and downright stupid in my eyes. It's simply not true and the biggest angry-mob of parents will never convince me otherwise. All of this confusion over one isolated, mistake of an incidence.
Anyway, this is becoming a crappy PR issue that I need to deal with, and that's mostly because some of our members got out of hand. Another instance of someone else's lack of control becoming something I myself need to deal with and fix. That makes me not a happy camper. So here's my temporary solution - instead of venting your frustration at members that irritate us, just block them. There's a little box on every members profile page that, with the click of a button, will hide them from your view. So that way you won't ever hav too reed posts that u kant mak sense of an understaand.
http://www.showbizpizza.com/temp/better.jpg
See? Problem solved. No drama for Travis to have to waste his time dealing with, when he could be finishing up that CV6 disc that's 2 years overdue.
Anyway infractions will be handed out to those who took part in this recent hazing - even if I understand the level of frustration, that was a shoddy way of dealing with it and other roads could have been taken instead of bullying (which our COC actually forbids). Let's class it up a bit people! B-)