A Sincere Request...

[Anil]

Everyone that visits and participates on these Boards has a common interest – understanding the essence of being a Hyderabadi. While some conversations revolve around the great city and its culture, many won\'t. That\'s O.K., and in fact, going by the responses, is greatly encouraging and interesting. Many of have been coming here for months if not years and a few of us might even qualify to end up in the Board Hall of Fame, if there was one to be ever made.
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<br>Unfortunately, of late, almost all of the discussions, even seemingly innocuous ones are degenerating into constant flaming, bickering, arguing just for the sake of it and replete with lots of personal slander. Is there some virus attacking going on which is making us all of us susceptible? I wish there was one, so that, I can at least hope for some remedy. Anyway, here’s a feeble attempt or rather a request to everyone to make these discussions invigorating in true sense. Feel free to add anything I might have overlooked.
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<br>1.Why post something which doesn’t contribute anything to the topic being discussed? I know, in trying to be civil we will be tempted to post something like, “Thanks” or “I agree.\" For discussions of such nature, as ZC suggested polls are better. A good post would be one where one elaborates on why he or she agrees/disagrees. Let’s put some effort into posts so they will contribute to and expand the topic per se. And then some of us have this habit (its free world after all) of increasing the post count (some sort of self-promotion spree), especially the newbies (no offense).
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<br>2. Let’s take a few minutes to review our messages before they are posted. Make an attempt to make sure words are spelled correctly and punctuation is correct so it will be easier for fellow readers. The biggest advantage is we can avoid the overzealous editing by the moderator. Of course, we are still bound to make mistakes and there is no harm in letting them being as it is. What a person posts is like a signature indicating his/her persona. I don’t see any reason for the moderator to edit each and every message. And please avoid messages containing all caps. Capitalized words are not only considered rude but they are generally hard to read as well. Instead we can use bold or italics to make part of a message stand out.
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<br>3. If ever we want to post an image, let that be relevant to the post. Now, how sane or relevant is it to post an amorous picture of Bush and Laden on a board to wish Happy Ramazan?!
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<br>4. Why start a new topic to discuss something already being discussed in a current topic, just reply to the current topic instead.
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<br>5. Now, the Troublemakers: First of all, as Arch suggested in one of the board, ignore troublemakers however strongly you might be tempted to post or whatever. If nobody responds to the messages they post, they will usually get bored and go away. In any case, offending messages, I guess will usually be deleted by the moderators and we also have instances of banning them. Of course, there will be deliberate attempts to provoke or irritate. Disagreements will arise, and that is perfectly okay as long as the debates remain civil. Let’s be respectful of other posters. Attack the content of a post, not the author of a post.
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<br>6. In all circumstances let’s not indulge in any sorts of profanity - totally. Some of us think that abbreviating bad words or substituting characters in for certain letters is okay in a discussion. What difference does it make if you type F*** instead of actually spelling the whole word? Arguing is OK, but why should we resort to personal attacks on other members? Of late, the fad seems to be calling each and everyone a moron!
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<br>7. New people should be made to feel welcome and not harassed or subject to derision just because they are new. And let’s not make mockery or answer in some twisted manner when someone has some genuine concerns or simply asks for a piece of information. Please remember, not everyone understands sarcasm or subtle humor. That doesn’t necessarily make them any less “intelligent” to participate in a simple discussion.
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<br>8. Also avoid copying and pasting huge chunks of text, unless it is original. Instead provide the source, usually a link.
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<br>9. Lastly, I view it as an obligation of every one of us to report any gross violation or a Board error to the moderator.
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[The fullhyd.com moderator]

The discussion boards are also being completely revamped as part of the overall revamp of fullhyd.com, and they will be state-of-the-art in features. The revamped site is scheduled to be launched by January. As we pointed out earlier, just about every suggestion made to us is being implemented, and so yes, users can create polls in the new version.
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<br>fullhyd.com aims to keep these forums lively and clean - as part of this, every once in a while we keep banning users who show sustained strains of tendencies to vitiate discussions. Errors do happen once in a while in moderation, since we deal with a large number of posts. We\'ll try our best to minimize these, but if any user does notice that something has gotten out of context, simply write to us at webmaster at fullhyd dot com, and we\'ll rectify it immediately. Thanks!

[Arch]

Good observations, Anil. A confession:I did find myself feeling a little guilty while I was going through your post because there were several times that I did what I otherwise would not have done but for the momentry feeling of anger/disgust/frustration... and at times holier than thou attitude too But Hey, that\'s ok, I am human and learn from my mistakes too.

[Faheem]

Anil, nice points! when people use substitute for part of the word they do it because they are used to doing it all the message boards of the world. They do it because some of the technologies used in message board automatically delete posts that contain certain words.
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<br>Also, I know that moderators at fullhyd do a wonderful job in removing posts that are not acceptable. But, since these boards are not moderated 24/7 hrs, messages with profanity or hatred stay for one full day for those of us in USA before they are removed. Will fullhyd moderators try to moderate these boards 24/7 with the new site? I can understand limited resources could be the reason after all this is a free service, but one of us can volunteer to moderate the site during day here in US when its night in India. Just a thought!

[b.]

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<br>Anil, i am with you all the way. great pointers....
<br>you mean our site should look more like a prestigious school where even the naughty nuts will come and try to become sober in one way or the other, so the site will look like a mirror to them in which they can see themselves. then enter/exit will be their choice. i hope in all this we may not lose the entertainment element (in the site)that can bring people together.
<br>hey i don\'t know if i am making much sence here...cheers.!!

[Anil]

Not at all! Naughty nuts are always welcome and fun. But isn\'t there a difference, even though sometimes dangerously subtle, between being naughty and being obnoxious. My basic qualms were against those who were going on a personal attack spree (you should see those discussions about Telugu/Urdu, Telengana/Andhra to believe me). I still maintain, attack the content not the contributor. And God NO! neither am I a prude nor am I dreaming of some discipline here! I am also against the censorship which would never come into picture if only each one of us is just be a little responsible while posting. Have a nice weekend!

[sunny]

Yeah I think ‘polls’ is a good idea. Every damn thing don’t need no separate board as such. And redundancy is always a problem. It would really help if people just posted their views in the existing ones. Pointless arguments lead us to nowhere man, just stick to the topic and defend your point the way it is supposed to and not by jumping on the other person. And please come up with some sane topics.