Today, I froze the accounts of several users. Normally, I reserve that measure for cases of clear and repeated abuse.

Well, today (just a few days after the board was attacked by some seriously messed up individuals) I encountered another kind of abuse -- by existing, well-established members.

Why were those user accounts frozen?

They were deleting their posts. Actually, they were replacing the contents of their posts with words "deleted", "gone", etc.

Now, why is that a problem?

I wouldn't mind if someone posted something, then changed their mind and asked me to delete a topic. There might be plenty of legitimate reasons for that. And I don't have a problem with that at all.

But systematically going through the posts and intentionally ruining conversations in which other people took part is abuse as far as I'm concerned.

To those individuals:

You see, topics consist of individual posts.

Topics are conversations between different people. When you make a post, other people take their time to reply to you. This is no longer just your post in a vacuum. It is a conversation. Other people put their time and effort into "creating" this conversation together with you.

Other people might bookmark it for future reference, might send links of such conversations to their friends and guild members and so on.

And then you come back, and replace your posts with "deleted". And completely break the topics -- those conversations are now ruined.

Someone out there took their time to reply to you, to comment on your quilt, to share their opinion, or just to say "thanks for the tip". And what did you do? You basically spit in their face.

All because you were in a bad mood at the moment.

On top of that, such actions leave the message board in a messed up state. I spent close to 4 hours today fishing out and deleting all the "deleted"/"gone" posts. Just to clear things up. So that we wouldn't have a bunch of topics about nothing. So that other readers don't have to waste their time opening up page after page in hopes of reading quilting-related material just to see "deleted" on their screen.

Thank you very much. That's four hours of my life that I'm not getting back.

One more thing:

I don't care for how long you've been a member of this board or how good of a quilter you are. I don't care if you threaten to leave. If you don't care about other people's time, effort and feelings, then I don't want you on this board.

UPDATE:

I received some communication from a few members, and as a result I would like to clarify a few things. There seems to be a lot of confusion about the cause of user bans.

None of the users who got banned were banned for copyright discussions. They were banned for ruining the existing topics on the board and for causing havoc.

In total 5 users had their accounts locked.

As for the copyright discussion and the terms of use here, I can understand the concern of some people.

I changed the terms of use for this website just so it's clear to everyone that I don't want to steal the copyright or the authorship of your posts and pics from you.

Here is the relevant clause from the terms of use as it appears on the site now:

and from the registration page:




So in short, you keep the copyright of your posts, but allow the unlimited use of the posts by the administration.

Why does the board need such clauses at all?

It's unfortunate, but companies get sued by people every day for most ridiculous reasons.

And I need to protect the board from even a remote possibility of such thing happening.

Imagine the following scenario:

Someone joins the message board and makes a post.
A month later, they demand a royalty payment for displaying their work. And since the site is run by a company, not a non-profit organization, they consider it commercial use, so now they want $50,000.

Is that likely to happen?

Probably not, but there are enough frivolous lawsuits out there, and I don't want to take any chances.

Thank you

Thank you for informing us about what was happening.
I really appreciate the forum and enjoy reading the posts and looking at the pictures.

Good luck with your efforts to resolve some problems. I hope things smooth out soon. It is a little discombobulating to see all the deleteds and gones. It's probably one of those things that will have no "please everybody" result. But thanks for trying to get the board back on an even keel. I know you and Patrice and Shadow work very hard to keep this a nice place to visit and some of us don't make your job any easier. Keep up the good work.

Thank you so much for all the time and effort that you put into keeping this wonderful site going. I am sure that it takes more work than we could ever imagine. We are truly grateful for your dedication.

Also, thank you to each of the moderators for their hard work and level headedness. This is a fantastic resource and I'm so glad it's available to us.

Thanks admin for all your work.
I love this site and so glad I have found it.
Your work is greatly appreciated to provide such a helpful forum.

Wondered why that was happening. Thank you for looking out for those of us that value our time and efforts too!! I appreciate your vigilance and dedication :!:
2 Doods

Yep, Patrice and Shadow are doing a great job in keeping the board running.

It would be more difficult without them.

Wow. I don't understand what happened here. Are there some rules that maybe some of us new people don't know? Pam Nix

Thanks for posting this and giving us all a heads up!
My opinion is this is a fantasitic board and I appreciate your 4 hours.
Kirsten

Thanks admin. I appreciate all your hard work! You do a great job with this site, I really enjoy it.

Thanks Admin. I appreciate the explanation and understand your frustration at this mis-use of the message board.

This site has been my lifeline in a difficult time. The Quilting Board has taught me how to quilt and has built my self-confidence immensely. Thank you for working to give us a site for learning and sharing.

Thanks Admin.
I was a bit confused as to what happened.
Ya leave for a bit, come back and find that things have really gone awry.
Thanks for all you do Admin. You too, Patrice and Shadow.

Thank you for your time. I think all of you are doing a great job. I just love this board.

I agree with everyone else Thank you for spending the time to get things back in line, I spend more time here than I do at the machine but all the people on this board have become like friends to me. Admin, Patrice and Shadow keep up the good work.

Hey Admin...is that a picture of you.....my you are a very hansome man :oops: :oops: :wink: :roll: :lol: :D :D :D :D

Agreed!

And I had the Administrator pegged as being some grey-haired old man. WOW was I wrong!

OK...I too agree on the nice looking!! Now..back to bizness...

First, thank you for the board...I love it! I've learned a ton from all the information and I've made what I think are some pretty good friends. I do know that now, my days wouldn't be complete without checking in to see what everyone is doing.. So..thank all of you for keeping this going.

With that being said...(and I do mean it)..now I'm nervous..is there a rule I don't know about that might cause me to be banned? Where are the rules so that I can read them to make sure I don't do anything wrong?

I understand why you did what you did but I'll have to say I will miss my friends.

I am sorry you had 4 frustrating hours yesterday, but I too appreciate all the time and effort put into running this board. Sometimes people can behave in such a disappointing manner; but sometimes one is delightfully surprised.

Thank you Admin, Shadow and Patrice; I am sure you don't hear that enough. :D

Thank you Admin., Shadow and Patrice. We appreciate all you do. I have to admit I was a bit confused about all the deletes, etc. I have learned so much and seen so many beautiful quilts to inspire me, and gotten to know many people. Thanks again for your time and patience.

Don't worry. Nobody gets banned for making a mistake.
It's done only in the cases when it's clear that the misconduct is deliberate and systematic.

So it's not likely that you or any user would get banned for doing something accidentally. It's really not worth worrying about.

Thanks for the update and clarification

Thanks Admin, Shadow and Patrice. I understood the premise behind the controversy, but didn't like the fact that posts were being deleted - it got a little out of control so thank you for doing something that might help get us back on the topic of quilting and friendships.

Will those who were deleted be allowed back on after apologizing or anything?

thanks again....

I don't know. We'll see. I'll talk to other members about it. See who can vouch for who. But in any case, it will be done privately. This has been enough of a distraction already.

Thank you Admin for all you do. You have a thankless job. Well, I say that but look at how many people are thanking you. :-)

I greatly enjoy this board. Thank you for creating it. I understand the liabilities one has in having a forum as this and agree to your terms.

Thanks to Patrice and Shadow, too!

I'm sorry all this happened. I wasn't even aware. But just for fun, Your avatar is a great distraction! Distractions like this pic I like. Thank you for your work.

Thanks for letting us know what was going on, Admin. I agree the 'deleted/gone' posts spoilt things. I only ever go back to edit what I've posted if I spot a spelling mistake!

Glad to hear that Patrice and Shadow help you out, thos eguys are GREAT!

Admin, Could you please unfreeze my account. I took out one post of a pic of myself and that was it.

I edit the swaps that I host so I know who sent what and to add new swappers.

Please allow me to edit when I want, I didn't remove my posts I am very greatful for this site and enjoy it very much.

Thank you.

Kyia

Kyiav10, your account is fine. It was never even considered for a lock.

I added a limit for post editing. It's 20 minutes. So if you create a post, you can change it within the next 20 minutes. After that, you can no longer edit it.

Such feature is common on many message boards to prevent exactly what's been happening here last night. I kept it disabled to give the users more freedom, but it will have to be enabled now.

It's not just your account. It's for everyone on the board.

I know people have been editing their posts to add things like "update on page 3" and to add members to various lists/schedules, which is very handy.

I think being able to edit posts is useful, but unfortunately some people decided to abuse it. So for now, there is no way to edit past posts.

I just wanted to take a minute of your time and express my gratitude for all that you do and have done in the past. This quilting board is a great place to be and my life would be poorer without it :!:

Thanks. I appreciate it.

Thank you Admin for responding to my post.

Thanks to Admin, PatriceJ and Shadow Dancer for all that you do.

I will have to keep track on wordpad or something.

Thanks, Kyia

Just a suggestion for the swaps, would it be possible for the person hosting the swap to contact Patrice to make any edits or updates that need to be announced?

I'm thinking about setting up some sort of an exception for people organizing the swaps. So that those people would be able to edit their posts.

Excellent!!! I know alot of people rely on those updates.

Thanks MgShaw for the suggestion, Kyiav for brining it to my attention, and of course, Admin for considering a solution. We sincerely appreciate your time and energy that keeps us up and running, smoothly at that :!:

I would like to agree with the other members and thank you for such an informative site. In the UK quilting is not so popular so there are not too many shops that sell lovely fabric that you have in the USA, or many good magazines. If it was not for the encouragement and inspiration I have received from members I would not be in the process of getting a sewing room built or facing bankruptcy through buying so much material I jest, but I am serious about the sewing room.
So thank you Admin, Patrice, Shadow and all the other members.
Katherine

Kyiav10, you should be able to edit past posts now. Let me know if it doesn't work for some reason.

Let me add my thanks for the hard work Admin and the mods are doing on our behalf. Generally, when I edit a post, it is to correct spelling or grammar. Is there a spellcheck that will work with this board?

I couldn't have expressed it better and agree entirely with Maxies2 above.

Here in Spain we have practically no outlets for fabric, let alone magazines or books, so to lose this facility would seriously curtail my progress in learning quilting.

I appreciate all the hours and unseen work that is carried out by Admin, Patrice and Shadow to ensure the board functions correctly, which I have to admit I was taking for granted unwittingly BUT NOT any more!! :roll: :D Thanks guys :D :thumbup: :thumbup: