3053 Aliena

Ronald, if / when we're asked why she is not posting, which line do we follow in replying please, we will not get away with simply ignoring the question.
Thanks
George.

That following a rather intense discussion in the chat room Aliena overstepped the mark and as a result Aliena has agreed to refrain from posting for a week.

PLease avoid mentioning punishment, penalty or anything like that.

Better still let me answer.

Also George while Peter (the owner of Italy Magazine and Poundbury Publishing) does check on the forums he is really not the person to get in touch for things like this.

All the best,

Ronald

Thank You, for both pieces of information, I am indebted...

[LEFT]This is really becoming very silly. [/LEFT]

what would you suggest charles?

Personally, I haven't been in the chat room as I neither have time nor the inclination, but from what I here there's a lot of this sort of thing happening. I suppose you can ask somene not to post for seven days but how does it ensure it won't happen again or from re-registering as someone else?

Perhaps we should ban both of them for a while, maybe a longer period than 7 days.

Oh dear, she's at it again! :(

Not knowing the background of this occasion (haven't seen any swearing - was that done in the chatroom??) I wonder what triggered the swearing. Was it just a disagreement on a certain issue... or just generally that they can't stand each other?

I'm happy to refer any queries to you, Ronald - and I'm sure there'll be some from her regular team of supporters. However, I agree with Charles that we should perhaps follow a stricter line with 'regular offenders' such as her. On the other hand, she's very helpful and knowledgeable, so I really don't understand her at all.

Maybe we should wait out this week to see what other say as well... and of course to see if she apologises!

And with George being another regular victim of her comments (amongst some others), we really have to watch her closely in future... :(

Shame it has come to this!

there is a sense of peace around the forum today... wonder what it is ;-)

Was noticing it earlier too... but also that WT and trullomf haven't posted today yet either... a conspiracy perhaps?? ;)

Just me or are we in a record stretch of peace and calm on the forum? (Touch wood)...

Was Aliena permitted to post on the "eclipse" thread last night ???

aliena and jig had a discussion in the chat room last night and they have made their peace - i had banned aliena with the condition that is she and jig exchanged apologies all would be ok.

Problem is the nature of her posts is largely unchanged - very trivial. Right now posting rate is low but are we going to see a return to every informative thread being hijacked for no good reason?

[QUOTE=ronald]aliena and jig had a discussion in the chat room last night and they have made their peace - i had banned aliena with the condition that is she and jig exchanged apologies all would be ok.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the explanation Ronald, nice to know why she was back, Ohh well, the weekend will probably be as interesting as usual, good while it lasted I suppose...

i will give aliena another week. if she behaves herself and does not create too much confusion then fine. if not then we will have to consider longer term solutions.

all the best,

ronald

In all fairness Ronald, you did say that if she apologised, she would be posting, no problems there,

I get quite confused by many of her facets though, she is capable of posting useful, helpful stuff, then, Bammm, off belittling and trivialising, but, as you say, give some time, see if she sorts herself out a bit...

[QUOTE=GeorgeS]In all fairness Ronald, you did say that if she apologised, she would be posting, no problems there,

I get quite confused by many of her facets though, she is capable of posting useful, helpful stuff, then, Bammm, off belittling and trivialising, but, as you say, give some time, see if she sorts herself out a bit...[/QUOTE]

Yup, not just you, George! :)

Glad those 2 made their peace... hope it lasts!

Following the latest spat between Jig and Aliena I have had to dedicate some time to learning a bit more about how I can control users in the forums (hoped it would not come down to this)

Here are the premises (followed by a possible solution)

1. Banning could be effective but is hard to enforce. Aliena would have no trouble in getting another e-mail address. I can't even block her at IP level becasue she uses AOL so I would have to block AOL as a service provider.

2. They are both to blame (Jig and Aliena). It is clear that Jig is playing a different game. According to her she is out to "expose" Aliena and at the same time ridicule her. Aliena is hot-tempered and clearly looses it but I don't know which of the two is more dangerous. Jig even threatened to report Italy Mag to The Italian and Italia! (competing magazines). Something that I found of very low style since I repeatedly asked her not to PM ALiena and even place Aliena on her ignore list (something she refuses to do because she would miss the fun).

3. Aliena has some supporters (Trulli, Dave, Wishful Thinker, andy s) that would also be willing to cause trouble in support (especially the last two).

Here is the proposed solution:

I have adjusted the techonology handlling the forums so that I can allow a user to post but a moderator must approve the message before it becomes public. I propose to place both Jig and Aliena in this Moderated Users group and be very very strict with what goes through moderation and becomes public.

Moderators can see these messages but need to approve them before anyone else sees them. This might be a bit more work for us. It will also mean that some of the messages Aliena posts (because she posts a lot) would become irrelevant by the time we get round to moderating them. Hopefully this will make the forum such a boring place for her that she will give up. Anything off topic from Aliena gets deleted punto e basta. She will be made know of this.

I know all this sounds too wishy-washy and weak compared to a ban. But Premise 1 is really that bad. This is the big bad web and its better to have trouble makers where you can see them. Wishful Thinker once tried to create another persona but thankfully messed it up :)

Please have a look at the following thread:

[url]http://www.italymag.co.uk/forums/travel-holiday-advice/2897-somewhere-swim.html#post26098[/url]

The last two messages from loveSicily are visible to you but not to normal users. That is how moderated messages will appear. There is a little person with an X over their mouth at the left-hand corner. If that icon is there it meand no one else has moderated that post so you can go ahead and take a decision.

I am really sorry you need to waste time on all of these and thank you for your patience and help with everything.

I am happy to comply with this method Ronald, at least one of us will be able to sort out what is going onto the forums, and, as you say, when the spontineity is taken from Aliena, she will not be happy and, may go away of her own accord. I live in hope...:) ;)

both aliena and jig have been palced in moderation - this means nothing goes through without us allowing it to go through

both have been told about this - the reasoning being:"This serves to safeguard both you and other members from eventual misunderstandings and guarantees that moderators will alway be aware about the type and range of discussions taking place thus making it much easier to resolve future disputes. No forum member will be able to accuse you while they are hiding their tracks."

I've just had another thought though, well, a couple of thoughts,
will she still be allowed access to the chatroom, where, I presume we can't pre moderate
will they both still be able to use PM's, where, again we can't pre moderate, and if they're not happy with this, they can still set up alternate identities and come on in those guises through the forum.

Putting it another way, What do you / we REALLY think will happen if she's banned totally, or as totally as she can be, and it is made public, and the reasons are made public.

If she comes back again, she would be, banned again, although that might be tedious for newcomers the old hands would probably accept it and eventually, surely she would go away ???

So far as the friends of Aliena are concerned, I suspect that more problems would originate from TMF's Hubby, DaveJ, he seems to be very computer savvy, Anyway, whatever...

[QUOTE=ronald]:"This serves to safeguard both you and other members from eventual misunderstandings and guarantees that moderators will alway be aware about the type and range of discussions taking place thus making it much easier to resolve future disputes. No forum member will be able to accuse you while they are hiding their tracks."[/QUOTE]

:D Couldn't have put it any better myself (and, that IS a compliment):D

all valid points George.

The fact is that we need to start "fresh" in a way - because in the past we were too nice.

Starting fresh means that we don't ban because that is an action out of proportion with what we have done in the past. However we are moderating more intensively.

If some other character pops up - whether Aliena under a different guise or someone completely new they first go into full moderation which makes it boring and then are banned.

There is no clear end - it is an ongoing battle but at least being able to check every message before it is made public is a pretty strong tool to have.

All the best,

Ronald

Fair comment, I understand the theory now, and, at the very least we will have the control from now on in.

Ronald,

I like the new way even though it keeps us busy... however, I couldn't see those loveSicily posts that you demonstrated earlier... have you removed them again??

This would certainly stop Jig editing her posts without any prior control, so I think it's a good thing! As for Aliena, she might indeed calm down... though I'm not sure how we should moderate her & WT's constant exchanges on the CdC... it would get very quiet in there... But perhaps it's a chance for her to focus on her helpful, knowledgeable side a bit more... :)

What did you mean about Jig reporting Italy Mag to its competitors? She doesn't sound like a very nice person given what you implied. What kind of info would she have to tell them? I'm sure they've come across this forum already and seen for themselves what's going on here...

Overall, I agree that this is a better way of controlling them rather than them using new email accounts to get back in... Where are my Big Brother specs?? Ahhh here... :cool:

Happy moderating!

Hi Iona - yes sorry I deleted them :-)

Aliena has replied "accepting" to be moderated but is nevertheless considering leaving the forum because I removed her Sirena nickname and gave her the plain old standard Patrician one. Oh well..

Woww, Ronald, I LIKE the NEW ronald :) :) (not that I didn't errm like the err OLD one, errrm....:o )

[QUOTE=ronald]
2. They are both to blame (Jig and Aliena). It is clear that Jig is playing a different game. According to her she is out to "expose" Aliena and at the same time ridicule her. Aliena is hot-tempered and clearly looses it but I don't know which of the two is more dangerous. [b]Jig even threatened to report Italy Mag to The Italian and Italia! (competing magazines).[/b] Something that I found of very low style since I repeatedly asked her not to PM ALiena and even place Aliena on her ignore list (something she refuses to do because she would miss the fun).

[/QUOTE]

Just picking up on this point - what benefit to Jig/damage to ItalyMagazine if she does this?

The Italian is part of a larger family of magazines from what I can tell, so I doubt they would really care and Italia is still a young magazine with a relatively small circulation. Also, given the behaviour of some of Italia's founders when they first appeared on the scene, I would not take anything they do very seriously at all.

Also, shopping ItalyMagazine to the 'competition' achieves nothing - there is precious little they can or will do about it, and at the end of the day this is the only one of the three magazines that offers a quality website/forum to its members (unless things have changed).

I think Jig was trying to scare me Sano ... as I said very low style.

Oh - I would like all of you to have a look at:

[url]http://www.italymag.co.uk/forums/general-chat-about-italy-italy-magazine-forums/3125-what-turns-us.html[/url]

There you can see Aliena's melodramatic post awaiting to be moderated. This are just the type of posts that are really not helpful because

a. The turn attention to an ugly fight that is better forgotten.
b. She talks in ridles that most members will not understand and will simply give up on the thread itself.

However, I would like your opinion on whether to delete or approve her post.

Thanks!

Ronald

[QUOTE=ronald]I think Jig was trying to scare me Sano ... as I said very low style.

Oh - I would like all of you to have a look at:

[url]http://www.italymag.co.uk/forums/general-chat-about-italy-italy-magazine-forums/3125-what-turns-us.html[/url]

There you can see Aliena's melodramatic post awaiting to be moderated. This are just the type of posts that are really not helpful because

a. The turn attention to an ugly fight that is better forgotten.
b. She talks in ridles that most members will not understand and will simply give up on the thread itself.

However, I would like your opinion on whether to delete or approve her post.

Thanks!

Ronald[/QUOTE]

Ah go one - delete it! She may as well learn at the outset what is and what isn't going to be acceptable here...

Agree with Sano... actually only just noticed that little icon with the X in that post as I thought someone else had approved it already!! Still learning... :)

Unnecessary link to long-buried thread!

Delete it!! ... I know you want to!! :)

As for Jig, she's been very quiet ....

Delete it would be my vote too, it serves no useful purpose.

Yeap the little icon with the X over the mouth means that the post is awaiting moderation.

Glad you agree (and I am sure Charles and Marc wouldn't have doubts either!)

Ronald

No doubts whatsoever!

Hmmm she's not a happy bunny... what's up with her account?

[url]http://www.italymag.co.uk/forums/general-chat-about-italy-italy-magazine-forums/3180-terrorist-attack.html[/url]

As far as I can see she's still blocked, so can she actually see her posts while the others can't (which I think is the case)?

Funny... they've had plenty of chances to post suitable stuff... and still don't! Very sad...

Does Aliena know the extent of her limitation within the forum, I understand that she (and WT) are limited to ONLY posting, they may not access any other areas, nor may they edit or cancel their own posts, and their posts must be cleared by a moderator before they appear, it seems as though she seems to think that everything should be "normal" now. BTW, I don't think either of them are particularly interested in posting normally, she said she had some interesting posts to make earlier...

There is a good post from Aliena in the thread "new here just lurking" in the welcome section, so, I decided to "allow" it, but, I can't work out how to do this, I have tried using edit, and the post moderation tools, am I missing something ??? Is there a Haynes Manual available ???
Yours thickly
GeorgeS...:confused:

Ahhhh, so that's what the tick box is for...:D