Re: harassment

[Guest guest]

You are correct. This has been remedied. We do not provide a physical mailing address. This will happen when we are incorporated and have a physical office. Your email has inspired me to try again to get this happening.

Re: harassment

gprobertson wrote: "Yup. We are an email group at this stage."

Even email groups that are set up with a public website accessible to all provide REAL NAMES of at least one individual who is the contact person for the group. They also provide a physical mailing address should someone wish to send them letter by more conventional methods.

A website that has neither is usually suspect and oftentimes specializes in questionable business activities. Not always, just oftentimes.

Raven

We found the real 'Hotel California' and the 'Seinfeld' diner. What will you find? Explore WhereItsAt.com.

[Guest guest]

Forum owners can ban anyone they like for any reason. For that reason, they are always right.

Re: harassment

gprobertson wrote: "You could go to the chat room and check on how disruptive I am.? It is an autistic chat so you would be bound to get the truth.? The other sites have contact details, so you could make some enquiries.? I am sure they would want to help as they do not like trolls either."

Why would I waste my time doing any of that when all anyone has to do is reread your posts since you joined here to find ample evidence of trollish behaviour and your penchant for posting defamatory and libelous comments about others who do not share your oftentimes misguided and ill-informed opinion?

I suppose you are going to try to tell members here that the many other online Autism forums that have banned you were wrong in their decision to ban you? I know differently and so do you!

Raven

We found the real 'Hotel California' and the 'Seinfeld' diner. What will you find? Explore WhereItsAt.com.

[Guest guest]

gprobertson wrote: "Forum owners can ban anyone they like for any reason. For that reason, they are always right."

Most forum owners have a set of rules by which the membership is expected to abide and when those rules are breached, most forum owners contact the individual or individuals breaching said rules. Where the individual or individuals continue to breach the rules of the forum, the owner has no other option than to moderate and then to ban the offending member or members.

I know for a fact that you were banned by forum owners in some of the forums where you were banned BECAUSE you refused to abide by the forum rules and BECAUSE you were abusive towards others members.

Of course, it can also be said that a member can leave a forum when they find they are experiencing a great deal of difficulty rather than cause as much trouble as possible prior to be being banned.

The aforementioned comment regarding leaving should in no way construe an indirect or direct comment from me to gprobertson that gprobertson should leave Secret Society.

I mentioned it as it is an option other than being banned that balances gprobertson's correct comment that a forum owner can ban whomever they wish from their forums.

Raven

[Guest guest]

Raven said:

" A website that has neither is usually suspect and oftentimes specializes in

questionable business activities.? Not always, just oftentimes. "

GP replied:

" You are correct. This has been remedied. We do not provide a physical mailing

address. This will happen when we are incorporated and have a physical office.

Your email has inspired me to try again to get this happening. "

I would not advise it. It seems clear that ASAN-AU is not wanted, or else A4

would not have been able to kick off ASAN-AU members without facing significant

dissent. I think your best bet would be to take whatever resources ASAN has and

gift them to A4, which seems to be the more effective of the two organizations

at the moment.

Administrator

[Guest guest]

" Forum owners can ban anyone they like for any reason. For that reason, they

are always right. "

I think there is a problem when a person is a member of a forum verses a

moderator or a forum owner. As members, we sometimes wish that the forums be

changed slightly to our likeing, or that certain people be thrown out, or what

have you. Sometimes we see people banned, and we do not know why.

I have banned a few people on this forum who displayed no outward behavior which

would indicate that they should be banned. Yet I received reliable information

from other sources that these people posed a danger to individual forum members.

From an administrative standpoint, it's frustrating to watch people quit because

I have banned someone whom they " liked " and, for privacy reasons, I cannot

reveal why that person was banned.

So it works both ways.

Administrator

[Guest guest]

So do I take it that the owner wants me to leave this forum?

Re: harassment

gprobertson wrote: "Forum owners can ban anyone they like for any reason. For that reason, they are always right."

Most forum owners have a set of rules by which the membership is expected to abide and when those rules are breached, most forum owners contact the individual or individuals breaching said rules. Where the individual or individuals continue to breach the rules of the forum, the owner has no other option than to moderate and then to ban the offending member or members.

I know for a fact that you were banned by forum owners in some of the forums where you were banned BECAUSE you refused to abide by the forum rules and BECAUSE you were abusive towards others members.

Of course, it can also be said that a member can leave a forum when they find they are experiencing a great deal of difficulty rather than cause as much trouble as possible prior to be being banned.

The aforementioned comment regarding leaving should in no way construe an indirect or direct comment from me to gprobertson that gprobertson should leave Secret Society.

I mentioned it as it is an option other than being banned that balances gprobertson's correct comment that a forum owner can ban whomever they wish from their forums.

Raven

We found the real 'Hotel California' and the 'Seinfeld' diner. What will you find? Explore WhereItsAt.com.

[Guest guest]

Do you let the people who have been banned know about why? And what about if you were the forum owner for administrative reasons only? What if the agreement of the group was that decision making was by vote? Would it still be OK for the forum owner to lock people out on his own decision?

Re: harassment

"Forum owners can ban anyone they like for any reason. For that reason, they are always right."

I think there is a problem when a person is a member of a forum verses a moderator or a forum owner. As members, we sometimes wish that the forums be changed slightly to our likeing, or that certain people be thrown out, or what have you. Sometimes we see people banned, and we do not know why.

I have banned a few people on this forum who displayed no outward behavior which would indicate that they should be banned. Yet I received reliable information from other sources that these people posed a danger to individual forum members. From an administrative standpoint, it's frustrating to watch people quit because I have banned someone whom they "liked" and, for privacy reasons, I cannot reveal why that person was banned. So it works both ways.

Administrator

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

Fellowship of the Aspergian Miracle is the last series of message boards founded by an original Aspergia member to carry the Aspergia name with the www.aspergia.com website owner's permission. To contact the FAM forum administrator, use this e-mail address: FAMSecretSociety-owner

Check the Links section for more FAM forums.

[Guest guest]

gprobertson attempted to twist my words by asking: "So do I take it that the owner wants me to leave this forum?"

I am not the owner of this forum.

Raven

[Guest guest]

What matters is that a forum owner wants you gone: what doesn't matter is why,

in reality, because as long as you aren't paying for anything, and they are, at

least with their time (Yahoo Groups cost nothing for this purpose) you don't

have a legal or moral leg to stand on, because, believe it or not, you don't

have the right to tell people that you must be allowed on.

Now, whether or not a forum owner/administrator is arbitrary, capricious and

unfair and perhaps hypocritical in some cases, that's an entirely different

matter, but it doesn't change the reality one bit, or even 32: if they for some

reason determine that they want you gone, you're gone, and you have no real hope

for recourse of any validity. Make of this what you will! (Observation is that

you will anyway)

>

> " Forum owners can ban anyone they like for any reason. For that reason, they

> are always right. "

>

> I think there is a problem when a person is a member of a forum verses a

> moderator or a forum owner. As members, we sometimes wish that the forums be

> changed slightly to our likeing, or that certain people be thrown out, or what

> have you. Sometimes we see people banned, and we do not know why.

>

> I have banned a few people on this forum who displayed no outward behavior

which

> would indicate that they should be banned. Yet I received reliable information

> from other sources that these people posed a danger to individual forum

members.

> From an administrative standpoint, it's frustrating to watch people quit

because

> I have banned someone whom they " liked " and, for privacy reasons, I cannot

> reveal why that person was banned.

>

> So it works both ways.

>

>

> Administrator

>

>

>

>

> ------------------------------------

>

> Fellowship of the Aspergian Miracle is the last series of message boards

founded

> by an original Aspergia member to carry the Aspergia name with the

> www.aspergia.com website owner's permission. To contact the FAM forum

> administrator, use this e-mail address: FAMSecretSociety-owner

>

> Check the Links section for more FAM forums.

>

>

[Guest guest]

"Do you let the people who have been banned know about why?"

I let the people who are banned know why I am banning them. As for forum members, I usually let them know except in four cases where to reveal the reason would have compromised someone else's personal privacy and identity, or else compromised a legal investigation. These were cases where criminal activity had taken place.

I will say that upon the banning of those individuals, there was an uproar from a certain faction of this forum who "liked" these people. Many from those factions quit in protest.

Unfortunately, I could not say that the people they were so enamoured with were more likely than not on their way to jail, nor could I explain my reasons for banning without compromising legal investigations or else someone's privacy.

"And what about if you were the forum owner for administrative reasons only?"

When I am unable to administrate the forums, I leave , , or Raven in charge, and have left other mods in charge in the past. They have rules to follow and I trust their judgement. To date, no one has banned anyone in my absence although they have the authority to do so. Unless I am mistaken, , Raven, and two ex-moderators have all banned people WITH my permission.

"What if the agreement of the group was that decision making was by vote? Would it still be OK for the forum owner to lock people out on his own decision? "

On one occasion the moderators took a vote on whether or not to ban a troll. They voted for the banning. It was not unanimous, but the overall vote was to ban. At that time I had about six mods plus myself.

There are two memberships at FAM:

1) General membership. Sometimes, there is a great level of activity with the general membership, with lots of people contrbuting to the conversation. I let discussions go a little bit more out of control in the general membership forums.

These forums are:

- Fellowship of the Aspergian Miracle Secret Society,

-Fellowship of the Aspergian Miracle Secret Shield

-Fellowship of the Aspergian Miracle Family Forum

-and one other non-FAM forum that I run.

Members of Secret Society, the "main" forum, have access to the Gentlemen's Guild and the Ladies' Lodge, although these last two forums seldom see any activity.

You will find lots of months with high activity, and these are ones where trolls were posting, or people were arguing with one another. In most cases, I let those arguments persist.

Sometimes, conversations take a bizzare turn. In the Shield, for example, you will see a month where two people had a long discussion about being watched and being spied on. I suspect they were not Aspies, but people with paranoid schizophrenia. Yet even though the subject of the forum was bullying, I allowed the conversation to go on.

2) "Core" membership. The "core" is longstanding. The "core" posts frequently. And the "core" are members of good standing. The "core" has access to inner more private forums for those reasons and those reasons alone. We have mail and female members. We have straight/ bi/gay/transgender members. We have people of various ethnicities, and people of different ages and degrees of functionality.

The "core" gets into the inner forums by invitation only, or an existing member may ask to invite someone from the general membership in.

I do not have to "like" a member to invite them in, and even members who were once considered trollish have been invited in after their behavior calmed down.

The reason the inner forums exist is to get away from the trolling and bickering that exist in the general forums. The "core" forums are invisible on the net, and only members of the "core" forums know the names of these forums, the url addresses, and the names of the members who post there.

Sometimes inner forum members opt to post there only and not to the main forums.

There are three inner forums.

Once, if I am not mistaken, I have allowed the core membership to vote on whether or not to ban a troll from the general membership. The vote was "yes" if i recall correctly.

I don't let the general membership vote to ban anyone because if you have a faction that is the majority, and that majority are clearly trolls, or is clearly going against the rules of the board, then you wind up having the majority rule and the whole nature of the board changes. I don;t want that, I must admit, because this was how my favorite message board of all time "Aspergia" was destroyed. The trolls were so active that the forum owner got tired of running the board and shut it down.

The "core" membership represents the ideals of the forum, and they are fair-minded. Likewise, I have a spectrum of people for mods, and I do not think that they are judgemental to the point of steering the board in another direction. With that said, even if they were judgemental, their own personalities are such that overall, they even each other out in terms of their mindsets and views.

Administrator