Feedback / What makes an excellent forum? [119]


Your solution is total message control and pre-crime thought check. It is impossible to do, even for Facebook or Twitter. When all reported messages are taken care of, it would still be too little / too late for you because you may happen to notice some other offending post added within the last 30 seconds that was not deleted yet. Of course, it would be our fault because we didn't pre-check the poster's thoughts.

The Internet is not meant to be used by all people; terri's advice above is a valid one.

Feedback / What makes an excellent forum? [119]

Check the /rules-privacy-tos/ page - point 20. to find the answer to your rant. It says: "20. All messages posted on this site are the sole opinion and responsibility of the poster."

Feedback / What makes an excellent forum? [119]


That's understandable when you want to be portrayed as a victim. I've just searched Twitter for the term: "you are a sk#nk" - thousands of results (and thousands of other, much more abusive). You found one example (already moved from this site). We must be doing a great job. You need to get out of your comfort zone and visit other places to realize that the PF quality and standard is much better than on other sites after all. Obviously, finding one example may allow to feel you better about yourself, but look at the big picture before you complain.

Feedback / What makes an excellent forum? [119]


Could you show me this message / link? I hope you don't suggest that I or a mod should know the thoughts of the poster to prevent posting it. Abuse posts can and will always happen. IF we didn't remove them after they have been reported, you would have the right to complain about them, but that's not the case at all.

To prevent abuse 100%, all posts would have to be pre-moderated (and possibly all posters would have to be pre-screened for criminal record and such). It is impossible to do. What matters is that all potentially abusive posts are dealt with.

Same applies to trolling - there is a reason the removable Random chat has hundreds of posts every month and some posters get suspended for weeks. Again, such posts are dealt with.

Feedback / What makes an excellent forum? [119]


Could you define these two simple terms that you use so often: abuse and trolling. Then I'll be able to address your question.

Topics unrelated to Poland, like religion, are not only in the Off-topic section but they are not available to the public. Also, anybody can choose not to see Off-topic discussions (most of them will eventually be moved or removed anyway). 90-95%% of topics are and have been related to Poland; the on-topic ratio couldn't be any higher on any Internet forum. For example, visit a forum about some other country and you'll see that the off-topic threads (not related to this country) can make up 30% or more.


Please define: "hate speech" in simple terms so that I or anybody could understand.

Feedback / What makes an excellent forum? [119]

An excellent forum is one that allows diversity of opinions and doesn't have a hidden agenda.

The single most important reason why I have ever stopped participating in a forum was the fact that certain voices were not allowed due to the forum's "partnership" with advertisers or sponsors. For example, there was a great, established forum (webmaster/tech topics) that allowed objective opinions about all corporations. Then one of the corporations have become a "sponsor" of the forum. All of a sudden, true (but negative) voices about the corporation have been quietly removed and new ones have been pre-moderated which meant only selected new topics about the corporation saw the public eye. New moderators have been added that scrutinized members who had negative experience with the corporation. "Likes / Dislikes" have also been added that were the moderators' weapon to promote positive messages and demote negative messages about the corporation. It has become clear to me that it's impossible to continue being a part of this environment.

On PF, we welcome genuine users who love or hate Poland. Some members "left" because they realized we are not a pro-Poland propaganda and that it is not patriotic to allow negative opinions about Poland or Polish lifestyle. Still, we believe that only through both positive and negative comments, Poland can become as great as it can be.


Just because someone doesn't post doesn't' mean they don't come here to read every day.


Probably as many as those who felt offended in the New York City because someone shouted on a street.

Feedback / What makes an excellent forum? [119]

@Paulina
Your "excellent" examples are really nothing special (not to mention most of them don't work in mobile). You've made almost 1.5K posts on PF; how many total messages did you post on all these "excellent" forums combined? It seems you take marketing claims as facts, which probably doesn't help in your overall judgement. You cite their forum "rules" which are in many cases the same as on PF and assume they are followed 100% (which is not true).

Talking about Facebook; do you know really smart people who use it, considering their privacy implications? Essentially, your every word (written or spoken), click, and mouse move is being analyzed by their scripts to package and sell you to the highest bidder (or to all kinds of enforcement agencies). It is impossible to post in public on Facebook without self-censorship, unless you're interested in trivial topics. It takes one (out of thousands) of "trigger" keywords to put you on the "watch list" and then possibly scrutinize your life.

How many times did you "leave" PF in the last years to come back over and over again? I've been on many different forums too, but to me being "polite" while providing little value is not interesting. There may be 100 people in a room, but if they have the same experience, watch the same TV channels, or read the same books, the world becomes small. You may "feel" you belong to these groups, but when you try to challenge them, your friends become your enemies because such "excellent" communities can only thrive when there is one common voice and little of real diversity in opinions.

Besides, you appear not to know how posting works, unless you mean 100% pre-moderated forums. Anybody can go to the forums you mentioned and post p***** rants. You're obviously fascinated by PF, so you aren't likely to notice the rants on your "favorite" forums, but I can assure you that they would stay much longer, possibly days or weeks there, than they stay here.


polishforums.com/po-polsku/ - you can talk in Polish as much as you want.

Feedback / Please bring back the Ignore Button [60]

Now logged users can hide posts of usernames they specify. To mute forum posts of others (including guest posters), you may go to your profile (action=prefs) and enter username/s, separated by a comma, of those who you want to mute. Eg. john_troll,notfunny,goaway654. Space in a username is represented by a dot. The information about muted accounts is saved locally in your web browser.

Muted posters will not appear in forum messages at all (and quoted messages that refer to them will appear without an attribution).

Feedback / Suggestions for banning users - give the reason [112]

A couple of threads were closed to avoid banning of the regular abusers who started abusing each other there. From our experience, the constant abusers demand 'strict rules'; but when they were updated, they would find ways of avoiding them (when they did, they would start abusing moderators for not 'enforcing' the rules). That's why, when someone has a few warnings already, the only rule they should keep in mind is not to get another warning (which may equal suspension).

Feedback / Suggestions for banning users - give the reason [112]


SERIOUSLY, having 7 warnings you should not be here any more and you should definitely not use the word 'we' in your answers. Your next warning will likely be a 1-month ban so there's no use giving you any more clues at this point. The good news is that warning count automatically decreases after a certain period of time without a warning, so you may better wait till you are eligible to giving opinions in the name of others. No 'more specific rules' are available because the abusers would try to find ways to avoid them and we don't have time for such games.

Feedback / Suggestions for banning users - give the reason [112]


WHY haven't you 'quit' yet - what is stopping you?


Obviously you have absolutely no idea about the reasons and adding clueless comments in explanation points cannot hide it. Tip - we didn't want to give inflated numbers and play with enabling / disabling robots which fake normal guest users, so we decided to only show real logged user count instead.


The rules don't change. Some of the constant abusers (like you) will just have less air to breath. If a 3-day ban will not be enough, it will go to a 1 month or permanent one.

Plus - whenever one of the users who has 3+ warnings abuses or trolls another user in the Random chat, they BOTH will be banned (one for abusing, another for posting in the random chat and replying to him/her). Don't want to be banned? - then don't post in the Random chat if you have 3+ warnings.

Feedback / Closed: (in advance) Is this how the Polish Forums gets paid by selling our cookies ? [30]

@Paulina - your 'research' has proven that Google's goals of good, useful, and secure sites are aligned with our goals. You are wrong on many of your assumptions (you will never become an 'expert' by reading a few mainstream articles on the topic). Either way, your conclusion is still clueless on the most important aspect - your point is that good, fast, useful, and secure sites are BAD, and Google should give higher rankings to bad sites - am I right?

With your 'I-look-for-conspiracy-everywhere' life, do you also complain when a supermarket you visit is clean and smells nice? (because that may suggest the owners are trying to attract as many visitors as possible to detonate a bomb at the right time)?

Feedback / Closed: (in advance) Is this how the Polish Forums gets paid by selling our cookies ? [30]

Regarding the title - 'we are selling your cookies.' - do you finally realize how ridiculous this statement is?
Regarding 'google rankings' - they rank websites based on: usability, speed, security, and content. Harry or you posting nonsense (like in this thread at least) is not helping in any way, trust me :

Feedback / Closed: (in advance) Is this how the Polish Forums gets paid by selling our cookies ? [30]

Based on your recent comments, you are completely unqualified to comment on technical or "Internet" aspects. My suggestion is to take a 101 Internet course, read about advertising cookies and why they are present on 100% of sites that either have some ads OR a link to Facebook/Twitter (for example); then you may come back with - this time - an educated message. Btw - logged users don't have any ads or cookies (look up a definition of: logged too).

Feedback / Updated rules [210]


That's a good idea - B (Baiting other posters) is now added to the Warning options.

Feedback / Updated rules [210]

Harry's idea.. if introduced, you and Harry would get banned every week for a week. If that's what your goal is, we'll consider it.

Feedback / Updated rules [210]

They are not racist - they are offensive/derogatory, but not racist. How about a 'kiwi' - I don't find it racist either.

Feedback / Updated rules [210]


Calling a Polish person a 'Polack' is not a RACIST abuse. Polish people are not a race.


But, based on the above, you don't know what a 'racist slur' is. It might be more efficient to 'ban' for calling someone or something 'racist' when in fact it is not. To me when someone calls someone else a 'Polack' then the real goal is to call someone 'stupid.' But then, if we were to ban for calling someone stupid, we'd have to ban posters who disagree with each other because any form of disagreement evokes negative emotions (=abuse) and may hurt somebody's feelings.

Feedback / Updated rules [210]

The proportion of possibly offensive terms against Polish people vs non-Polish people is about 6 to 1. IF we were removing possibly offensive posts against Poland/Poles and left those that are unfavorable to non-Polish people, you might have claimed there is a 'racist bias' against the non-Polish group. But the mentioned ratio proves otherwise.

If there's an abusive post - use the Alert feature.


I don't. I just called out the hypocrisy.


Right.. exceptions.. exclusions.. this is when the Pandora box opens.

Feedback / Updated rules [210]


Give 'us' - you mean who? You're still on probation for troll-abuse and should probably be the last person to try to write in the name of a group of posters.

There are a lot of references to 'Polacks' - ?phrase=Polacks - so you've just proven that PF is not racist (IF it was, there would be 'racist references' to one group of people only).

I've never heard of the term "Shquiptars" and had to look up the recent definition of '***' - so '***' may be considered as offensive as 'polack' - dictionary.com/browse/polack. The term 'polack' appears 8-10 more on this site than the term '***.'

So please clarify - is PF racist against whom - blacks, whites, Asians, Spanish, Polish, or everybody? If everybody then by logic it cannot be racist.

Btw - here is the quote from your own post: "More senseless dumb Polack observations, not based on any real knowledge of Poland." or "I don't think it's much of a surprise that the more uneducated the Polack,..." (multiple references to Polack in a single post) -

https://polishforums.com/history/poland-reasonably-well-land-terms-57531/8/

You are calling Polish people ('Polacks') - the 'extremely disparaging and offensive' term. Why didn't you quote this post to prove your point?

Feedback / Updated rules [210]

Still waiting for examples of 'racist posts' - out of thousands of messages, nobody who posted in this thread can link to 'blatantly racist' posts? Someone tried, but failed (pointing out 'off-topic' messages only). I understand it's easy for a delusional to say 'PF is racist' - then it should be easy to find 'racist posts' within a minute, no?

Feedback / Updated rules [210]


Nope - I got general statements and no real-life examples. IF I understand correctly, whenever someone doesn't approve with someone else's actions, it is racism?

I asked you - if you hate it here, WHY you keep coming back, year after year? Let me present a diagnosis: you come here for real life. You've tried 'other Poland / Polish forums' or Facebook, but when you realized half of the posts are boring or untruthful, 30% are posted by people who try to conform to the fake reality, and the rest are censored, you decided you'd rather stay here. But, at the same time, you're trying to force your crooked way of life instead of respecting posters who don't pretend to be what they are not.

Since day one, we've always welcomed posters from all countries, races, religions, and backgrounds. By trying to find racism in everything, YOU ARE THE QUEEN OF RACISM. You're like one of those white old-fashioned ladies who would act differently, unnaturally-sweet when a man or woman of color suddenly shows up. You are the person who deep-inside ASSUMES that people of color need special attention or treatment. They do not - they are as naturally capable and intelligent humans as white people are and by trying to 'protect' them you are telling them that they may be inferior. They are not, so why don't you be yourself and STOP judging people by their races or cultures. Will you.


Are the independent news a dying breed too; probably not.


If a post is related to Poland, it's always considered on-topic (even if the original topic is not-Poland related).

Feedback / Updated rules [210]


An example?


Translation: cannot find examples of posters writing that {color} people are worse kind of human beings.


What about posters who ridicule people who get married too young or who happen to marry an alcoholic or who are not as successful as their friends or who go to church or who go to 'stupid entertaining shows' or who drink too much soda? Why are you being so unfair to all these other groups of people - is it ok to criticize/ridicule/diminish them? If not, then is it ok to disagree or disagreement is something that should be banned?

If we ban opinions then we can ban anything that goes. Do you really want moderators to ban according to their own preferences (if they ban a poster who criticizes eating meat on Fridays, then they can also ban a poster who is okay with buying animal-tested perfumes). In the end, every statement could be a good cause to ban someone because someone else could get hurt by the thoughts or opinions of the poster. Is it what an ideal forum would look like in your world?


In fact, I found it offensive and it hurt my feeling (I'm speaking in the name of all forum admins who have been called a similar way). So..it should be a good reason to ban you, shouldn't it? (if not, then why not?)


Agreed - off-topic posters may receive a warning / possible suspension quickly these days.

Feedback / Who is deleting my posts? [84]


They will be archived on Polanda; that's why they are gathered in a single thread, just like the random chat.

Feedback / Updated rules [210]


If PF is known for 'racism,' you as the top poster are part of it? Either way, in order to determine 'racism' you MUST know the race of the person making a statement. We do not have any field related to 'Race:' - so how can you know a poster's race and determine whether they are racist or not?

So in order to ban something, we must agree what it is. So - what are 'racist posts'? Let the top posters post their short definition here so that moderators could understand better how to spot racism and racist posts.


'Not reading' = scrolling on mobile devices. The less scrolling the better.


You are a top poster here; is it equal to rubbish poster?


DEFINE: TROLLS so that moderators could gather more info.

Feedback / Who is deleting my posts? [84]


Then be precise - they were moved. If something is moved, it exists and using the word 'disappear' doesn't apply here.


I could copy-paste this sentence into this big thread and close it; there's not much to discuss on that. Even if there are 5000 pages on that, the conclusion will be the same and all the rest is mindless drivel.

Feedback / Who is deleting my posts? [84]


DID YOU CHECK ON POLANDA? What do you mean by 'disappear'?


The goal of PF is NOT discussing religions. Moderators cannot waste time sniffing though 1500 posts trying to find those that are directly related to Poland. The other possible option will be to completely remove the religion thread if complaints continue.

Feedback / Threads about Muslims to be automatically in Off-Topic? [20]

All religion-related discussions are in one big the off-topic thread as referenced by Vincent (this thread will be eventually moved to Polanda). If a discussion or a post is not directly/genuinely related to Poland then it will land there (or in the bin) too.

Feedback / Updated rules [210]


My response1.


My response2.


My response3.


My response4.


My response5.


My response6.

Much quoting / much ado about nothing. The majority of people DO NOT NEED to have each and every sentence or question quoted- they can relate to the questions in a single thought. Just like in a conversation - when you make your point, you don't quote the other person's exact sentence to make your own point. Besides, PF is not a courtroom.

---

A better version:

@Chemikiem - The rationale is that most readers are discouraged by excessive quotes (they skip/don't read them). Second, it's a waste to duplicate the EXACT message (ie. a quote) that was posted right above because it forces mobile users to scroll to read a NEW message. Finally, now you can scroll with the POST FORM and you can see the exact post when you reply to it (and don't have to remind yourself what you're trying to refer too).