Moderators - Are They Moderate Themselves?

Actually, my patence has run out. I tried to mediate the arguements, allowing everyone to have their say, albeit in a bit toned down manner than the original posts. Yet, the arguments escalated as though I'd allowed the full contexts of the posts go through as they were. (Are you all reading between the lines and guessing what's been filtered? It seems that eliminating harsh language - which most people ignore - makes arguments sting even more.)

Anyway, the Nichi-Bei forum seemed to be where most of the hostilities were coming from, so I figured I had two choices: (1) eleminate it or (2) give up on it. Trying not to be too rash, I chose #2 and disabled moderation to Nichi-Bei. If it's a cesspool of vindictive drivel, arguing for arguments sake (like the MLB boards often are) that you all want, so be it. I'll just stay away from the Nichi-Bei forum.

Right on queue, complaints started rolling into my e-mail box about how the forum appeared to be broken. (When MLB forum type messages start going through, that's how people perceive it - as broken.) Having spent close to 24 hours not looking at Nichi-Bei (and therefore not getting more upset with what's going on), I'd calmed down enough to make a decision for Nichi-Bei's direction.

BigManZam, the "neighborhood enforcer," has had moderation privileges since I went on vacation last summer, but he hadn't used them since then. Yes, he was part of the problem with the sanitized thread, but it was he who sanitized it, recognizing that his own posts were out of line and removing them as well. He sees value in these forums not degenerating to MLB forums' levels of uncivility. (And, yes, I believe that he will hold himself up to the same standards he sets for others.) So I've put him in charge of Nichi-Bei full time, and I'll just stay away from there. Maybe that'll help hold back the rate that my hair is whitening.

Kranepool-san, I like your insights, and I agree with your arguements more than I disagree. (Otherwise I'd have written them off as being troll bait and thrown them out completely.) But the way you present everything is so confrontational. Disagreement and conflict aren't necessarily bad, but your duelist approach only allows for your opinion to be valid and others' to be invalid - and anyone who disagrees with you is completely ignorant or worse.

A passion behind the insults and attacks as a part of every argument seems to come from many of the New Yorkers who post here. Is this part of the New York environment? New York culture? I just don't know how to deal with all of the hostility coming from you and a few others. So I'm now delegating that job to someone who I believe can.

Lack of rancour is what defines this site, and moderation is how it maintains that civility. If JapaneseBaseball.com became unmoderated and dissolved into the spit-fights that other forums display, I predict that many of us would desert this site, but that most of the deserting group would not frequent (or set up) another site - they would just stop discussing NPB online.

In other words, I foresee that the degrading of this site would lead directly to the loss of a forum for discussion of Japanese baseball in English, and of a valuable source of information for researchers, scouts, reporters, players' families, and the like.

<aside>
Also, while the uncluttered design of JapaneseBaseball.com doesn't define the site, it certainly differentiates it from other similarly-themed sites.
</aside>

Thanks Westbay-san, for your calm and thoughtful response. I think you are right on most of your points. I also appreciate your understanding that I sometimes have something interesting to say, maybe extreme at times, but that I am no troll.

With regard to on-line communication, here are a few thoughts. Japanese have refined communication to an art form, in terms of politeness and ettiquette on the verbal level anyway. Those skills disappeared in America years ago and frankly, could use a modest comeback. You mention the New York factor, an area with which I am well aware. New Yorkers tend to cut to the quick, tell it the way it is and ignore the niceties. Some actually thrive on confrontation - it is an in your face place. New Yorkers will not sit back when attacked either. That is the way New Yorkers are generally, just as Kansai people, for example, have their own peculiarities.

Now consider the impersonal nature of on line communication, the lack of real-time feedback and visualisation, which discourages restraint. Put all these together and you can have a volatile mix.

Personally, I prefer to be dispassionate, but I do suffer from the situation above. If I read something that I find particularly unreasonable, I will go after it. The ceaseless accusations of bias, the polite rationalization of what one might construe to be discrimination, or some implication of cultural superiority (both ways) is particularly irksome. So what does a good New Yorker do? Go after them, call them out and put in his two cents - passionately. The anti-thesis of the proper Japanese. There is no sense trying to change the two - maybe revel in our differences?

I am fine with BMZ deleting both of our posts. The thread is on topic. However,if someone gets on their soapbox (pontificating racism, bias or other strident, unreasonable drivel), better expect to get heckled. (Don't know if anyone here has been to Speakers Corner in London, but that was a real live chat room before the Internet.) I'll keep my heckling clean, in English, and hopefully, with less strident posts by others, less confrontational.

Thanks again for bothering to respond. You do a great job with this site.

So there you have it. Some like vanilla and some like chocolate. Others, tutti-fruitty.