Hello. I have been asked to oversee the moderation on our forums, not to take the place of your moderators but to help them. After a good few years of chatting on a number of forums I know how emotions sometimes run high, opinions vary but we all share one thing, a love for our football team. I also know that common sense will ensure self regulation of our forum will ensue. I don't see or want the role of moderator to be that of a policeman or dare I say it a club steward, neither needed nor wanted. I won't be scanning every post or comment looking for reasons to hold on to my Bobbies helmet, I use other sites for that. The mods role is simple, to moderate if we have a problem, if something offends or upsets you then message your and we will get it sorted. All I ask is that you try and consider your fellow fans when commenting. Anyone can swear abuse and threaten on an internet forum but we have all ages, backgrounds, races, sexualities and religions in our worldwide football family and it's good to respect all views and people. All new members will find a no swearing filter on their page. All posts will be shown but all swear words are blocked. This gives every member control on what their personal preference is on swearing. It's impossible to just ban excessive swearing because we all have differing opinions on what is excessive. It's either ban all swearing or allow it. If you don't mind colorful language then you can remove this filter by going to the bottom of the page and you will see a box on the left. Just click on the box and change from no swearing to allow. Report Button to Follow My view, and its just my view, is that I would like all pages to allow swearing in the knowledge that it will rarely offend because of what I said above, each member taking responsibility for what they write, with freedom of speech comes responsibility. Can I suggest you have a quick look at the forum rules, they are very brief and in my opinion common sense. More than anything I think we all want to enjoy our forum, it is ours so let's look after it and enjoy it. Ignore function. If you find a particular poster to be, lets say, not to your taste then go to settings, ignore list on the left half way down, click and enter the user name of the poster and send. You will never see them again.
No need for swearing at all. Football is an emotive subject I know but posters should be able to control themselves and not get angry because a negative opinion about a favourite player differs with that of ones own. We have different standards about things and vocabulary should imo come into them. Swearing shows a low standard. We can all move to other sites and if things get too offensive that's exactly what I will do.
So long as you don't try to stop me from taking the piss out of the Gooners and Mickey Mousers on my own forum, I couldn't give a toss who moderates this board.
Swearing is often language outlawed by conquerors, in Britain's case mostly oppression of the Saxon language by the Normans. Quotes from publications like The Mail or The Sun are often far more offensive that swearing ever should be. It's not words that are offensive it's the context they are used in and many 'acceptable' words can be very offensive if used in certain ways. e.g. Plank, Loser, Boy and so on. I use swearing to make points and to confuse those with preconceived ideas, it can be very effective and is an essential part of any educated persons vocabulary.
It always amused me that the word "tool" and the expression "bell-end" were both banned on the old BBC 606 website. Yes, they are offensive, but they are hardly at the major end of the vernacular scale! Having said that, I still think that the little slap-head icon is a far more effective put-down to an argument than any vulgarism. By the way, I've noticed that swearing appears to be tolerated far more on some forums than on others. We tend to keep our board very clean, very much like our football. I kinda like it that way, as I am not in the habit of swearing.
It's also noticeable that there is far less insulting language on this forum, where you are free to swear, than there was on BBC 606 where the mods were often paranoid.
Agreed I think BBC606 created a frustrated membership by trying to be too paternalistic, the result was that people felt unable to express themselves properly and minor spats and disagreements were never allowed to reach their natural conclusion. Instead because of the limitations, they rumbled on and spilled over into other threads. On here, most wums are given pretty short shrift, pretty quickly and it tends to nip it in the bud. Talking specifically about swearing - sometimes only a swear word will carry the right weight to impart the proper meaning behind the comment.
The worst thing with this site is that certain boards (Gooner and 'Pool mainly) are far too intolerant of good, open and honest debate from non-partisan fans. The old 606 may well have been paternalistic, but the Gooner and 'Pool boards are fascistic. On balance, I prefer paternalism to fascism.
Swearing is fine in context. I complained about the language of a Gooner once, and was told you hear worse on the terraces and in the pub. I hear racism homophobia and sexism there, so not sure that should be the yardstick. However what the mods (forum, not Spurs) failed to realise is that none of the words used were an issue for me, the context was such that if they had been said to me in the real world, I'd have lamped the speaker there and then.
I've said it a dozen times before and I'll say it again, here, that personal abuse made by one poster against another, whether or not it contains foul language, is far worse than any alleged "wum" comments made by an opposing fan. What constitutes a wum comment is always subjective and far too many humorous and witty comments are removed simply because certain fans/mods lack even a basic sense of humour. But offensive comments aimed at specific individuals are exactly that - personally offensive. I would have one rule and one rule only - ban only those who persist in making personally offensive comments against other posters. Everything else, whether or not some ignorant opposing fans might consider the comments to be mere wummery, is actually nothing more than harmless banter.
Syd's not a bad chap to have as a moderator like... Can take banter, so he's already better than any 606-excessive PC-gremlin... On the issue of swearing, it dawns on me that swearwords are ****ing fantastic, in the right hands(/mouths), of course... Joe Kinnear endlessly flapping his "f@&*ing t£$ting" gums is idiotic, but employed intelligently, swearwords ENHANCE points and impact, hence my description of them as "super-adjectives", rather than swearwords. Deconstruct a sentance of a cutting witticism or motivational speech which contains such a super-adjective, and this nonesense of them being simply a form of uneducated expression is absolutely blown away. Ironically, the view that "only idiots use swearing" is actually the uneducated perspective.
Better than the mods over on JA606, where by everything derogatory written about Liverpoor is removed by their Liverpool loving mods.
I lasted about three postings on the 'Pool board, over at JA606, before they barred me. After that, I gave up and I haven't been back since. Sure, I'm barred from the 'Pool board over here, but I think I lasted about a dozen postings before my cutting insights became too much for their Mickey Mouse sensibilities. I have now come to terms with the fact that Mickey Mousers have absolutely no sense of humour. You only have to look at Ken "tax dodger" Dod and Jimmy "here's another ****ing dull golfing story" Tarbuck to work that one out.
