It has come to A.M.I.T. forum editors’ attention recently that some members have taken offense at posts which they have deemed to be of a “personal” nature. As with most other forums on the internet we have our own set of rules (see link below). The purpose of these rules is to provide all of us with a friendly atmosphere on the forum where we all offer our views and discuss opinions in an open and frank manner, without fear or favour. From time to time we can become overly sensitive to other A.M.I.Ter’s responses to our heartfelt opinions. Members are quite rightly allowed to have a differing opinion or emphasis on a particular topic to our own. This is what we want here. If we all agreed on everything, it would be a rather pointless exercise and frankly a quite boring place to visit. Regardless of how strongly we wish to emphazise and defend our own beliefs, opinions, and views on a whole range of topics, we need to do so within the safe parameters of these rules.
This is why we would like members to re-familiarise them-selves with our rules here:-
http://www.amarkintime.org/forum/index.php?topic=3068.0 and also with our new rule regarding a negative trend developing on similar sites.
Supplementary - Inflammatory-postings and flame-baiting
A trend which has emerged in other forms on the internet is “flame-baiting” sic:-
http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/definition/flamebait. A.M.I.T’s group of editors have discussed this in relationship to our forum, and to prevent it from happening here, are instigating a warning/banning sequence which will complement the discretionary powers already available to them if they believe this is happening here. Editors will be keeping a look-out for any instances which contravene any of our rules, and also ask that members who feel that they have an issue with another member’s post that they use the “Report to moderator ” function which is located at the bottom of each post.
The warning/banning protocols are as follows.
If any editor views, or a member reports a particular post to the editors, which they believe contravenes any of A.M.I.T.’s set of rules, then an editor will:-
1) Notify, by PM, the “reporter” that their concern is being reviewed, and also notify the member who has posted the suspected offending post, that their post is being reviewed. The editors, under our current rules have the capacity to edit out the offending parts of the post, or to delete the entire post.(If the offence is deemed by the editor to be severe enough the topic will removed to a separate “editor’s board”, immediately)
2) The “reports” are then reviewed by a panel of the editor group, and they will determine whether the offending post does indeed contravene A.M.I.T.’s rules, and if so, they will issue an official warning PM to the poster.
3) If the warned member decides to re-issue the same or other offending post again at a later date, then they will be given a 1-month ban from A.M.I.T. forum.
4) When/if the member returns to A.M.I.T., and he/she is again deemed by the editor’s panel to have contravened any of A.M.I.T’s rules, the resulting ban will be permanent.
It is our hope that we will never need to invoke these protocols, and we ask that all of our community remain vigilant and always pause to review their own postings and edit out any sections which on reflection, may fall foul of A.M.I.T’s rulings.
