Josephine You're not paranoid. I do not have to check your PW history to feel pretty certain whom you're talking about.
Josephine I still don't know how to edit my posts.
Click the three dots that show up when you hover in the lower right area below the post. For your own posts there should be an "edit" option there.
PianoMonk This is also from PW...
Behavior on the Forum
Thanks PianoMonk. I had to search keywords to find where this document was on the website. Here it is, for reference. It's funny that you said the rules I quoted were at the bottom of these guidelines, because there is a link to your quoted guidelines at the bottom of the rules I quoted!
Sgisela My impression is also that there was a chunk of time on PW when a lot of the significant moderation calls had to do with whether industry professionals were doing too much self-promoting. But as the industry professional participation declined, this became less of an issue.
Yes, spam and self-promotion were the biggest headaches at Reddit too.
candela This is something I personally would rather not include:
"You may not:
– – –
Use the Web Site to advertise or solicit to anyone ... to visit another competing Web Site"
Yes, we should definitely not include that rule! A lot of the VS rules seem designed to protect company interests.
Pallas "I don't enjoy talking with you, so please stop interacting with me on this forum," for whatever reason has no effect on some, and sometimes even causes other people to criticize you for your boundaries, which I find unpleasant and strange to the max.
I think continued interaction should count as "harassment", and it should be a reason to ban a user.
Pallas I wouldn't want someone to be banned because I simply don't like them, but if someone has been repeatedly reported and had warnings and their posts removed by a moderator because they wouldn't behave, then I think a ban should be considered. People should have a chance to reform but if they just keep making trouble, they don't deserve to play.
Pallas The difficulty for those who must set the rules is in interpreting them and enforcing them for the greater good, while staying fair and objective throughout.
Agree with everything you said. And although I have seen some deleted-by-moderator behavior that I personally thought warranted a ban, I don't find myself volunteering for the extra work and I respect their decisions, especially so after reading Bart's post about how thoughtful they try to be about it.
Josephine hi Josephine, I’m 99% sure I know who you’re talking about. You are not being paranoid, and I think most people who were regular members of the ABF have a very good sense of what you’re talking about. But I think this is one of those areas that is very challenging to moderate, for reasons that others have brought up.
There are a few members on PW who have very complicated personalities, and they rub different people in different ways. I will say, the ones who have ticked me off the most are not in the Most Likely Suspects category. I think we all have different triggers, so unless people are quite obviously breaking a particular rule, it is difficult to draw lines. There is also an obvious issue of enforcing bans. There is at least one member who has come back in various guises after being banned. I don’t think the moderators were dumb or naïve or out of touch. I think that they recognized that if someone was bound and determined to participate, they would just create new accounts.
With regard to the person you’ve had issues with, I will say the following. I absolutely understand if you feel the behavior was bullying. It’s not clear to me that this was the intention, but it is quite clear to me that what was written could very easily come across that way, and I would wish the person had the insight to realize that this was how their behavior/posts frequently were interpreted. I will also admit that with regard to the content, I tend to agree with this person much, much more often than I disagree. But I also feel that this person frequently fails to listen, and especially for adult beginners (or people who are not beginners but have significant insecurities), this kind of attitude is not helpful (and probably inappropriate). My personal view is that people should feel like the ABF is a safe and supportive space to talk, get advice, and share. It is not the Pianist Corner, where blunt talk and criticism is to be expected.
I think that one option might be to designate the beginner’s forum (or whatever forum serves in this capacity) as a place where the atmosphere is supposed to be particularly supportive (and therefore, the threshold for actions that are considered bullying, intimidation, or harassment, are somewhat lower than in other parts of the forum). I don’t know if it’s possible to ban someone from posting in just one area, but if it’s not, people can get warnings that if they do post in that part of the forum, they will be banned from the entire forum.
Anyways, these are just a few thoughts I had. As a community grows, it becomes more challenging to accommodate different points of view. But I don’t think it’s impossible, and I absolutely think it’s worth being thoughtful about how we would like the rules to be structured.
I think the fact that most of us know who we're talking about without even mentioning his identity is telling enough to say that we must not let this kind of toxic behavior happen here. I don't know how. But if I come up with something I'll let the mods here know.
Sgisela I think that one option might be to designate the beginner’s forum (or whatever forum serves in this capacity) as a place where the atmosphere is supposed to be particularly supportive
I like this idea! And also perhaps in that forum, people can indicate the kind of feedback and support that they want when they start a thread, and that needs to be respected by all commenters (ironically I only checked out the ABF recitals after joining PT, and I see that everyone chooses the kind of feedback they want).
Sgisela People should feel like the ABF is a safe and supportive space to talk, get advice, and share. It is not the Pianist Corner, where blunt talk and criticism is to be expected.
I kinda hope that "blunt talk and criticism" is not going to be expected here in any of the forum sections, to tell you the truth 
I mean it's okay to disagree with someone. Heck it is expected to not agree on everything, that's what keeps us sharp and it's how we learn things. But I honestly don't like blunt talk and criticism just for the sake of it... no matter how much of an expert the other person is. We have a right to expect a certain amount of respect... no matter our skill level and wherever we choose to participate. I personally don't want a special forum section where we can feel "safe", we should feel safe everywhere.
I think a rule requiring extra sensitivity in the Beginner's forum is a good idea. How about this as a rule (sorry that it's long):
Note: I edited the original version based on comments below.
Because we want to encourage beginners to feel comfortable showing off their mistakes, permission must be granted before giving users critical comments in the Beginner's Forum. When sharing their performances, users in the Beginner's Forum can add the following words to the title of their posts:
If no such words are present in the title, "Polite Positive Comments Only" should be assumed. "Polite Positive Comments Only" means users must ask before giving criticism. For example:
Person With Critique: You played the beginning wonderfully, but I have a suggestion, if you want it.
Beginner: No thank you.
<end of conversation>
If a beginner feels comfortable with a particular person, they can also give carte blanche permission to give criticism at any time. Alternatively, they can tell another user they never want criticism from them. A polite example: "Sorry, but I would rather not receive your criticism. Your criticism style doesn't work for me. "
(If a user feels uncomfortable saying this directly to someone else, they could ask a moderator to do it for them.)
Ithaca Based on your feedback, I changed the word "Polite" to "Positive".
I also foresee enforcement problems for subjective words like "kind" and "supportive". When I wrote them, I was thinking that the words serve more as guidance for the users than a line that moderators need to enforce. But I'm open to suggestions (and ultimately, it's up to navindra to decide if he wants to use whatever rule gets crafted here).
What originally spurred this line of action were comments from Josephine. I don't think these rules would totally satisfy her needs, but hopefully it's a step in the right direction.
Ithaca The primary reason I think that hard constraints should be set only on those performances that are clearly labeled as wanting solely limited responses comes from my experience with extremely large academic communities. What I've seen is that when the baseline assumption is that everyone has to be very careful about the possibility of offending someone, then both the volume and the depth of the conversations drop off. The major university in the town that I live in is planning on making significant changes over the next few years because the faculty, staff, and students generally report that they're reluctant to say very much for fear of being tarred and feathered if they accidentally off
A very good point. I wouldn't want everyone to be scared posting or have to wear gloves when participating in discussions. It should be friendly but casual. More like a Saturday barbecue than a dinner at the president's house.
Unfortunately I have to go soon (and I may be gone for a few days, possibly weeks) so someone else will have to take over any other changes to this. Good luck!
rsl12 I think there could also be the option "No comments, please".
Just as an example: in places like "40 pieces a year", the posters are not posting with the intent of presenting 40 polished pieces but want to keep their momentum up and perhaps spend more time in the early phases of pieces where they feel they learn more per time spent. They are likely already well aware of many of the shortcomings but choose to only really polish a few pieces. And some are only uploading to keep themselves accountable.
Personally, I sometimes feel awkward getting polite feedback for something I'm not content with myself and have opted for "no comments" in at least one recital.
