I'm passing this along for Debbie Cleveland. -- -Time flies like the wind. Fruit flies like a banana. Stranger things have - -happened but none stranger than this. Does your driver's license say Organ -Donor?Black holes are where God divided by zero. Listen to me! We are all- -individuals! What if this weren't a hypothetical question? steveo at syslang.net
---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2003 13:46:37 -0400 From: Debbie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Message boards Anyway, Steve, I was hoping that you might post the following message where you feel it might be appropriate: framingham.com would like to re-establish its message boards to provide an opportunity for everyone to participate in, or read about discussions about Framingham without dealing with unwanted emails. However, in order to do so, I need a couple of volunteer moderators to monitor the discussions, as Steve has here. This involves reviewing the messages and editing or deleting if the postings are offensive and deviate from set policies that posters agree to when they sign up as users. (These policies generally involve no personal attacks, no offensive language, and no pitching a business or product. Common sense rules that some people ignor.) The moderators can be anonymous and guide or not guide discussions as they are moved to while being respectful of opposing viewpoints. There may not be any messages for days at a time...The moderators may post notices and articles that they feel of interest and or provide important information about issues and happenings in the town. I had to pull the message boards due to personal attacks on various town officials and rumors stated as facts as well as racial slurs and generally offensive language on the part of a small group of users. Evidently this is a problem that crops up from time to time as other moderators have had the same problem. Their solution has been to add more moderators, as I am hoping to do, shut down the boards for "maintenance," keep deleting the messages, and block the offenders. The "wayward" parties give up and go off to some other board or chat room. Perhaps there won't be any problems, but I simply don't have the time to moderate the boards all the time. They are set up in real time, so that postings are automatically available on line. I could set it up to first review all the postings, but that is tedious and I don't want to be perceived as a censor withholding messages, or clog up an exchange, esp. one that might be time sensitive, due to lack of time. My goal is to provide an easy means for the community to exchange thoughts, information, and set up healthy dialogues about life, neighborhoods, and government in all of Framingham. To get an idea of what the message boards would be like, take a look at http://natick.info/cafe/ and http://natick.com/forums/index.php and note their rules. In addition to hearing from possible volunteer moderators, I would also like to hear from people about their thoughts about the message boards and if they would read or post to them. Thank you all for caring about Framingham, Debbie Cleveland To unsubscribe, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with body "unsubscribe frambors" (the subject is ignored).
