Inappropriate Moderator Behavior

[Salome]

Hello,

For many years I have had my focus on things other than the forum. Things that have taken more time and energy than I have... but that's life sometimes. My presence on the forum faded out. But when hosting would be close to expiration I would reach out to mods/members to get a sense on whether people wanted the forum to continue. Even if it was a small group who expressed their desire or those who wished it to remain as an archive... I have been willing to renew it. I have briefly and occasionally dropped in, and my webmaster too, but the volunteers who managed the forum did so without me.

There are no perks to moderating, people are generously giving their own time and energy. I recognize and appreciate that! While I have been absent, I am still the owner of this forum and my policies stand. It was brought to my attention yesterday that a moderator has performed actions here that are contrary to what is expected. Two issues identified were demoting user group status of a member and locking a topic unnecessarily. I noticed that the slogan of my own website was changed without my knowledge or permission. There may be more issues I've yet to learn of or that may be the sum. I placed a level of trust that moderators would adhere to the established protocol and mostly that was met but not in the case of this one person.

I am making this a public post because I have no idea how many times he has done it, to who, on what topics and so forth. That person left on their own and I've changed their status to member so they cannot perform any moderator actions. If you were affected, I apologize! Please know you are welcome back and I hope you return.

 

[Zorba]

If you're pointing the finger at me, I only locked exactly ONE thread, and it was one that needed to be locked. The rest of your problems I had nothing whatsoever to do with. As this forum has been COMPLETELY neglected for YEARS, one of the HUGE quantity of SPAMmers probably hacked their way in and did Goddess only knows what...

 

[Zorba]

In addition, I spent a huge - and I mean HUGE - amount of my time combating SPAMbots and other ill things when absolutely NOTHING was being done about it by management. So I don't know what "demoting user group status of a member" even means, but its possible that it may have been mixed in with getting rid of the SPAMmers, I don't know. As for the locked thread, a couple of members were trying to publicly shame another dancer over her perceived political views. THAT is "inappropriate".

 

[hippyhips]

As for the locked thread, a couple of members were trying to publicly shame another dancer over her perceived political views. THAT is "inappropriate".

Sharia publicly shamed herself, and if you read the original post, no names were named. though to many it was obvious who it was and she WAS eventually named. The whole controversy could have sparked a really good debate - which some people had started - and would have been a perfect debate for a forum.

The initial question was about supporting people who have problematic views when it comes to belly dance against the people who come from the "home" countries, Versus staying in contact, or supporting someone who could potentially leave that mindset.

There could have been a good discuss on HOW to do that, how to steer new - comers away from toxic or even racist avenues . But your bias against Facebook itself, (combined with a small hint of supporting Tumps policies) made you want to shut that conversation down.

You didn't see the videos from sharia - you assumed - you didn't she the posts she put up and your ignorance around Facebook in general (and how MOST active belly dance groups on there would not allow for a lot of toxic behaviours anymore - IF moderated well) prompted you to shut it down - because you didn't like it.

Two people already had given two thoughtful replies on the subject or supporting or NOT supporting, But because YOU didn't like the post you shut it down. oh, this is after posting a random line about Biden which no one was interested in picking up, simply because the topic wasn't actually ABOUT what "team" you support - rather the problematic views ANYONE could hold.

it has nothing to do with, "leave this crap on Facebook where it belongs" - its a very real world topic belly dancers are having to deal with and talk about today. A topic YOU decided you wanted to shut down.