Great Western Coffee Shop

"Why is it that 10% of our members make up 90% of our moderation work?" asked one of the "Behind the Counter" team yesterday evening.   It's probably because they are members who have active enquiring minds and views and direction perhaps not shared by the rest of us.  We are enriched by their presence but we need to provide firm guidelines to help them and us know where the limits are.

With that regard, can I re-iterate that it is not acceptable to post anything which is discrimatory on race, religion, nationality, gender, forum status, orientation, disability (and I may have missed some off). Neither is it acceptable to post anything which promotes, encourages or gives publicity to those views, though not actulally expressing those views in itself. On most of what we allow, we are pretty wide in what we accept.  Discrimination is different; it in not accepted. Period.

If someone steps over the line, the first time, typically it's just a warning aand getting the post changed, making sure the original poster understands what the problem was.  Subsequent transgression can (and occasionally have) resulted in posters being put on approval, denied posting rights for a while, or banned.

Not sure if something can / should be posted?  Please ask any of the moderator team; we're happy to give a steer, and can alert the rest of the team to inform them on that posting.

It is rather unfortunate that you should need to clarify this, Graham.  But thanks for doing so, and let’s hope the penny finally drops.

Good to see this being addressed however let's not pretend that racist/bigoted views are the marque of those with "active enquiring minds", it's usually a sign of someone whose outlook is firmly set in the Stone Age and hasn't proved capable of evolving.

Just a note - that this post has been reported to the admin team as being close to a personal attack on other members, and I can understand why. Please, lets explain our concerns and move forward

By way of explanation, it's an observation on the nature of racist & bigoted views and those who expound them, not an attack.

As the offender hasn’t been identified, or even closely alluded to, how on earth can ot be seen as a ‘personal attack’??

I agree with TG, it was a general opinion on those that often make discriminatory comments

I'm sure you all read my comment that the follow up has been reported as ... I declined to express any view, but rather am suggesting we are all mindful of the risks of overstepping all sorts of marks, and that different members and guests will read things differently.

My plea - please don' drown the admins!

To my mind in this context only one mark was overstepped but I'm willing to be corrected if I missed something.