Howzit NJ, I’ve always felt that swaylocks was a forum where we can give others help in the form of ideas and tricks of the trade we have learned from our expierence in the industry of surfboard building. We can only pass on what we know and if a person chooses to use that information or not is up to them. Arguing over design ideas is like saying it’s my way or the highway. The fact that we all don’t do things the same way is what makes us unique. I agree with you whole heartedly that we don’t need a Jerry Springer type of dialogue and it seems that you have a good idea of what Swaylocks should be. Swaylocks is a teaching and learning website and I hope it continues on that road.Aloha,Kokua
How about this concept:
Rather than seek to change the behavior of others, why not simply change our own reactions to other people’s behavior? In other words, if they are upsetting to us, that’s our problem. We as adults have the capacity to regulate our own emotional responses. If we don’t, and mere words on a computer screen really do get our blood up, maybe it ought to be our responsibilty to go get some counseling or take one more or one fewer drink or whatever it takes to not blame other people’s non-physical actions for our own feelings.
What many here are advocating is that we all behave in a certain manner, one that makes sense to their own particular definition of maturity or whatever. Why do you feel justified in demanding others conform to your wishes? I can’t imagine ever advocating such a thing! What right do I have to expect others to behave like me? None! Instead, I let others do what they want until they cause me actual physical harm (be it a punch, or polluting my water, or damaging my property so i have to work more to replace it), only then do my own rights trump the rights of others. But nothing on Swaylocks has ever gotten to that point, nor can it since it’s all just words on a computer screen.
We’re each in charge of our own varied emotional reactions and expecting others to alter their (non-physical) behavior instead of just altering our own reactions to that behavior, well, that would be what I’d consider childish.
I’m not into a blocking thing. Most of the time, I like what these guys have to say. Just like most of the time, I love my kids.
But like any parent - there are just times I want to chuck the boys out the window.
And that’s kind of how I feel about what people write in here sometimes when their blood is boiling. I’ve even been there myself (although I generally think better & go back - the edit feature is a wonderful tool).
But just like parenting, a short & to-the-point correction would go much further towards engendering pro-social behavior than bans or blocks would. Punative corrections lead to anger management issues, while sandwiched criticisms and constructive but immediate interventions lead to actual learning & behavior modification 
And to my wife, if she ever happens to read this…see? It does sink in! When I keep saying “Uh-huh. Izzat right.” I am listening! Happy now, teacher-lady? 
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Howzit NJ, I've always felt that swaylocks was a forum where we can give others help in the form of ideas and tricks of the trade we have learned from our expierence in the industry of surfboard building. We can only pass on what we know and if a person chooses to use that information or not is up to them. Arguing over design ideas is like saying it's my way or the highway. The fact that we all don't do things the same way is what makes us unique. I agree with you whole heartedly that we don't need a Jerry Springer type of dialogue and it seems that you have a good idea of what Swaylocks should be. Swaylocks is a teaching and learning website and I hope it continues on that road.Aloha,Kokua
Well said, Kokua.
The my way or the highway comments are just as foul as the grumpy old flamers. Just have a look at what happened to the “Remarkable board” thread. I take that back, worse.
Mike sent this to the Mod Squad quite a while back…
I just felt like sharing it with y’all…Seems like as good time as any…
I almost think that before someone is allowed to post here, there should be an “agree” / “disagree” button to push, before you can have access to the site…I almost think that…
Anyway, here it is, maybe some of you / us can get something out of it to help keep Swaylock’s as special as it was / is / will be…
The Art of Hosting Good Conversations Online
By Howard Rheingold
HOST BEHAVIOR
- Remember that both civility and nastiness are contagious.
- Patience is rule numbers one through three: Deliberately add a time delay on your emotional responses before you make any public posting or private e-mail.
- In most cases, NOT saying anything outside the community of hosts is the best decision. The first art of the host is the knowledge of how and when not to act.
- Bring your situation to the host community if you are angry, puzzled, or otherwise uncertain about what to do.
- You need to be cautious about learning by trial-and-error because errors at the beginning can set long-ranging reactions in motion. Establish trust early or expect suspicion for a long time.
- Bend over backwards to be fair and civil when challenged. You are performing the public drama of the foundation myth of the community.
- Have fun! Signal that it's okay to experiment, okay to not take yourself and the whole enterprise too seriously.
- Hosts represent the authority of what few rules there are. People will challenge you just because you represent authority.
- Use Aikido: One ounce of elegance and grace is worth ten pounds of argument. You can charm or seduce discussions back on topic, and conflicts away from the brink of brawl, but you can't force them.
- You feed the behavior of challengers when you lash out at them.
- The way hosts respond to public conflict with citizens, especially the first such conflicts, provides the opportunity to wield the most powerful tool for modelling civil discourse. Do it right, and the community absorbs the lesson. It's also the most dangerous time, if you react angrily, unfairly, or even sarcastically, feeding a downward emotional spiral.
- Challenges are relatively infrequent if you handle the first incoming barrages gracefully. After that, challenges will be less frequent and less important. However, the opportunity and necessity for the host to model hospitable behavior continue as the community grows.
- Force backfires on authority online. You have to persuade and pull because pushing is an automatic loss for authority.
- Avoid taking sides. Not all conflict is to be avoided. If a conflict is important enough to have its hooks into the attention of a large number of members of the population: use it as an occasion to remind people that civility is essential if discussions are to cohere into communities. Conflict tests the boundaries of the community.
- In the long run, this is about democracy. Many communities of practice and interest thirve under autocratic moderation, and they are useful as informed, interactive versions of refereeed journals, but the power of increasing returns -- where the community itself directs the growth of its size and value -- can only emerge from an infectious spirit of voluntary collaboration.
- Don't freeze a topic to make a point. Think about whether the topic belongs to more people than just you. People get really pissed if you use a host power unjustly.
- Hosts get to know people -- from the beginning. Introduce yourself, let people get to know you. Be a good natured servant of the conversation, but you don't have to be characterless, egoless, or colorless.
- Welcome new people, and after the first ones get to know each other, continue to encourage oldtimers to welcome newcomers. Eventually, the community takes over the public welcoming function.
- People's first reactions are most important. Praise them by name. Be interested. Read their profiles and point them to information that you think will be personally relevant to them.
- Names have power. Put your newcomer up on a pedestal by name, for doing something the adds to the community, and that newcomer will amplify that behavior forever after.
- Communicate via email with both promising newcomers and troublemakers.
- Discourage snitching. Don't stir people up in private, but always respond to email queries about social problems by encouraging people to act on their principles publicly.
- Encourage people to talk among themselves
- Check your participation files and learn who your regulars are. Don't spook your lurkers, but encourage them when they come out
- Hosts catalyze, facilitate, nurture -- and get outta the way
- Let the community co-create its own dramas, shared language, founding myth. These all must precede discussion of creating a social contract -- dramas that all witness and participate in, shared language, rituals, myths, jokes, customs are how people get to know and value one another enough to want to go to the trouble of creating a social contract.
- Be a model cybrarian. Show people how to start new topics or suggest them. Show them how to use the tools (links from posts, etc.). Be the memory of the conference -- point and link to relevant info in the past or elsewhere in the community Encourage others to search and retrieve and link info that is valued by other members of the group -- and praise people who do so.
- Revive old topics by adding to them from time to time.
- Retire old and obsolete topics: put up a list of topics to retire, with a week for public pleading. If people plead, encourage them to revive. Then retire the rest. When in doubt, ask. In most circumstances, don't kill a topic if you can retire it.
- Pose questions for the group to consider.
- Encourage people to hide long responses or big graphics.
- Act as fairwitness. Point people to the classics of Netiquette. Point out the pitfalls of the medium that cause people to misunderstand each other (lack of visual and aurl cues).
WHAT AN ONLINE HOST WANTS TO ACHIEVE:
- The ongoing goal is civil discourse: all kinds of people having conversations and arguments about a variety of subjects and treating each other decently.
- Authentic conversations -- from the head, the heart, and the gut.
- A feeling of ownership. Participants become evangelists.
- A spirit of group creativity, experimentation, exploration, good will.
- A shared committment to work together toward better communication, better conversations. If this is achieved, nothing else is needed.
- A system where people figure out where the conversation is going, by themselves, and settle conflicts among themselves
- A place where everybody builds social capital individually by improving each otherÕs knowledge capital collaboratively.
GOOD ONLINE DISCUSSIONS:
- Enable people to make contact with other people.
- Enable people to entertain themselves rather than being just the passive consumers of canned entertainment.
- Enable people to create a gift economy for knowledge-sharing.
- Create conditions for ongoing collaboration that return individual effort with a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.
- Provide a way for people to get to know each other beyond their usual masks.
- Make newcomers feel welcomed, contributors valued, recreational hasslers ignored
A HOST IS…
- A host is like a host at a party. You don’t automatically throw a great party by hiring a room and buying some beer. Someone needs to invite an interesting mix of people, greet people at the door, make introductions, start conversations, avert fisticuffs, encourage people to let their hair down and entertain each other.
- A host is also an authority. The host is the person who enforces whatever rules there may be, and will therefore be seen by many as a species of law enforcement officer.
- A host is also an exemplar. Good hosts model the behavior they want others to emulate: read carefully and post entertainingly, informatively, and economically, acknowledge other people by name, assume good will, assert trust until convinced otherwise , add knowledge, offer help , be slow to anger, apologize when wrong, politely ask for clarification, exercise patience when your temper flares.
- A host is also a cybrarian. Good hosts nurture the community memory, pointing newcomers to archives, providing links to related conversations, past and present, hunting down resources to add to the collective pool of knowledge -- and teaching others to do it. Well performed voluntary cybrarianship is contagious.
- A host can be a character in the show, but the show is collaborative improvisation, with the audience onstage.
- All hosts are members of a community of hosts. You can't host communities without communities of hosts
WHAT A HOST DOES, WHAT A HOST TRIES TO GROW
- Communities can’t be manufactured, but you can design the conditions under which they are most likely to emerge, and encourage their growth when they do.
- Communities don't just happen automatically when you provide communication tools: under the right conditions, online communities grow. They are gardened.
- All online systems tend to fail to cohere without careful intervention. But the intervention has to be ground-up, not top-down.
- All online social systems are challenged by human social foibles and technological bugs that tend to split groups apart.
- Positive effort is required to create the conditions and garden the growth of a self-sustaining group.
- Clear rules, sparsely enforced, with an explicit expectation that the community's own norms will emerge later, is important at first. Establish the top-down part at the beginning, then move on. Those who don't like it will leave. The rest will make up their own minds after they get to know each other and the system.
- The kind of rules established before opening day helps determine the kind of crowd that will be found there a year later. The early crowd has a strong impact on later arrivals.
- Making rules after launching, or changing them from the top down is a mistake.
- Keep the rules as few as possible. Keep them simple and based on ordinary human courtesy.
- Within months, each community will want the tools and opportunity to make their own rules. This can be facilitated by means of a process handbook for democratic decision-making, and access to people who have experienced the process themselves.
- Only when everybody shares a clear understanding of a community's social contract can, hosts can model behavor according to the clearly stated social contract.
- Eventually, natural hosts emerge in each community, and existing hosts should scout and mentor them.
- One point of heart is worth ten points of intellect when recruiting hosts.
- Communities can learn to create their own social contracts and choose their own forms of governance, based on widely agreed, explicitly described, simple statements of purpose and principle,
I for one have benefitted from this place more than I could have immagined. It’s really changed my mind about what I might accomplish with my hands. There are a lot of great, generous, supportive people here. It is a great community of geniuses’ and novices.
There are times when I’m loving a thread and it digresses into something completely off topic or a waste of time. That’s a shame because progress is lost. Usually though, by the time it gets locked, the topic has died already.
Respect to the moderators. Your job is tough. Whether or not there should be blocking, locking, banning, or whatever is, in my opinion, completely up to the guy who makes this place happen. Mike Paler, right? More power to you. We’re not speaking on a public corner. I’m sure a lot of guys work hard to make this place happen. Strong opinions are one thing, but at least respect the wishes of the host when you are in his house.
I appreciate this place because it’s rare and valuable. I’d hope others could just respect the forum, not take it for granted, and show some manners.
Thanks Sway’s
its interesting to me to see some of the postings in regards to this issue. there are some that feel the need to defend rude and irrational behavior under the guise of “passion”. i understand this. i respect it. it is part of it. i accept it.
but, in terms of learning about issues in regards to surfing and shaping boards…if you actually gave me the choice…i have to admit, i would choose a forum with a certain amount of respect and integrity. that being said, maybe this is not the forum to have such a code of conduct. once again, i understand it. i respect it. i accept it.
maybe another forum could be created with this in mind, thus satisfying the “passionate” people and also satisfying the lame people like me who are not really interested in name calling, insults, and other such behavior under the guise of “passion”.
as someone who has taught for over 20 years in the tuffest of the tuffest hoods/schools here in los angeles, i seem to gravitate to a forum of somewhat higher conduct. trust me, i have experienced passion…and in my experience, it simply seems to flow easily when there is some type of common courtesy. but, i do agree there should be a forum that is free from such conduct, as to allow people to say, insult, attack, and be as passionate as they want to be.
maybe the alternative site could read something like this:
www.surfstuffshaperhangoutwebsite.com
this is a place to share ideas.
please know that the moderator does not tolerate personal insults.
if you wish to visit a forum that does tolerate such a thing, please visit swaylocks.com.
heck, maybe a new forum is being created as i write these words…
I think what it boils down to is certain people have unresoleved issues, and until they squash it! we will get nowhere.
“Can’t we all just get along board”
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I think what it boils down to is certain people have unresoleved issues, and until they squash it! we will get nowhere.
“Can’t we all just get along board”
there will always be people with issues. thats life. no problems. everyones on their own path.
i believe the question here is “does swaylocks tolerate such behavior from these peoples?”
if it does, then thats how it is.
if it does not, then the people with obvious issues can go to another site, or start their own site, or simply learn to comply with the policies of the forum.
i am not the moderator of this site.
if i was, then i simply would not tolerate rude and personal attacks.
if you dont like it, then go somewhere else…start your own site…more power to you.
the internet is big enough for all types of sites and forums.
thats just me.
I like Kenz belief that there are the odd and the different amongst us, and they are the ones that bring colour into the regulated,civilised world that we accept as normal.
And maraboutslim said something about people regulating their reactions to inflamed discussion.
Both seem to be facing the same direction as we all know that “it takes all types”, yeah?
But theres no way to stop people being themselves, be they passionate or moderately tedious.
Sways has an undeniable core attraction to the odd and inventive, inc. mad/bad/sad/ creative folk and recreational loonies but I reckon most of the ‘creatives’ are under 50 and most of the ‘moderates’ are over 50. The oldies might have been “fire-brands” and cutting edge shapers “in their day”, but they arent keen to change their 30 year old views now nor accept that time changes all,… including the way we all converse, chat, talk, argue, fight and disagree. And think.
But thats probably how they thought in their youth too !
Actually the BT of yesteryear may have been similar to the RS we know now… and theres every chance that RS may command a similar ‘tribal elder’ position, in the future, as BT.
Lets just agree that the worst thing in any surfboard conversation, whether you are telling it, or listening to it is… ‘the end’.??
All I think is that if anyone has a personal problem with someone else they don’t need to post it where everyone can see. If those people have a problem they can PM each other all day for all I care.
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All I think is that if anyone has a personal problem with someone else they don’t need to post it where everyone can see. If those people have a problem they can PM each other all day for all I care.
i agree.
nobody is trying to change the behavior of anyone else.
the question is whether or not this site accepts this type of behavior for all to see.
whether you want to accept it or not, there are some moderators who actually moderate according to their own personal judgment.
if you dont like the judgment of the moderator, then go somewhere else.
go with love.
go with anger.
go with whatever.
the point is, go somewhere else.
the same rules apply to me as well.
it seems simple to me.
Steelparade1, dont you think thats its human nature to stay where you are best accepted? Despite a few setbacks?
So what if a few others dislike a certain persons POV? Its human nature to carry forward with your thoughts despite opposition.
Actually we are lucky that there are the free spirits that inhabit Sways, even if they might disagree and that gives us all a bit of sport.
However consider what Sways would be like if we all thought the same,…
No conjecture, no eanest debate, no balancing opinions or conflicting theories…?
It would be bloody miserable to read, much like a political manifesto.
But thankfully we have human nature to provide the spark of creation, invention and conflict, and a bit of heady rough-house every now and then.It cant be changed and it and cant be stopped.
I kinda love the loud guy in the supermarket or the line up, sure, he’s not as perfect as I am, but I cant get upset at everyone that doesnt conform to the 2007 Penns. Civil Code of Public Behaviour.
Better to find a redeeming feature and let them live the way they do.
Someone wrote in and said ’ why do the non-design threads get the most posts? ’
Because they are damn interesting, and because we are inherently different people who thrive on diversity. And isnt that Sways??
But if the Mods consistently deleted my posts, Id move on…
Id hate them forever, but Id move on… metaphorically speaking…
Just to add to Kokua’s proposal.
Its one thing to throw out or receive the occasional personal attack. I think most of us have been guilty of that at one time or another.
Its quite another to consistently practice what I like to call
“DEVISIVE MANIPULATION” of the spirit of Sways,
then claim “its not a personal attack so hands off”.
What to do with these devisive personalities?
Yellow Card…Red Card…Penalty Box? Banishment?
I hardly ever post here, but I read this forum every day. Sometimes I read something that just pisses me off, usually political, but I always have the option of just moving on to a surfrelated tread. I feel if someone post some nonsurf related item, if we just don’t respond to it, it will die by itself. Sometimes we fuel the fire by responding to this crap. I say just let the chips fall where they may, eventually the idiots all lose interest and go away. Well sometimes they stay for a long time, but those guys just kind of grown on you!
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Steelparade1, dont you think thats its human nature to stay where you are best accepted? Despite a few setbacks?
So what if a few others dislike a certain persons POV? Its human nature to carry forward with your thoughts despite opposition.
yes, i agree.
do you think its possible to have heated, passionate exchanges with out insults and personal attacks?
Funny in my small insignificant time on this planet, I have elected to have zero tolerance for mean spirited, pompous ass people. I can’t judge myself that’s for other to do. But I feel that people who know me would label me as a friendly, kind spirited person…That’s the way I have elected to act. We all have the capibility to choose what kind of person we want to be. it’s your choice, not a genetic code…It takes a lot of hard work to be a jack ass, much easier to be nice.
Words do hurt. I believe that if somebody says something, they mean it. i.e. " Hey your sister looks like, blab, blab… Oh, sorry dude i was just joking". No that’s not a joke, and there is always some form of truth to everything someone says, or they wouldn’t be thinking it…remember that.
In my book words are as solid as actions. Cross me verbally and be prepared, it’s just like taking a swing at me.
You can’t just spout off. We live in a democracy with free speech, but there is a limit and a sense of decorum that goes with it too.
I know fricking PolyAnna Boy, but If we tried to live by this the World just might a better place, at least a nicer place.
Ok now go surf.
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Next time you want to ban someone, just remember that these are real people, and this is their personality coming out. Good or bad, should someone be banned because of their personality? No ones getting hurt on Sways. Words don’t hurt.
Not everyone in the world is nice. They’re just aren’t. That’s how they are, so should they be banned for being themselves?
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We live in a democracy with free speech, but there is a limit and a sense of decorum that goes with it too.
Well, you can call someone an idiot and claim freedom of speech. However, there are limits to freedom of speech too. If you make more serious claim, you need to back them. No freedom of speech is going to help you. However, this is swaylocks. It’s not a democracy. There are other tools for the moderators than locking threads. However, I think every need to look inside themselves. You as a community can regulate yourselves better than the moderators can. If someone is ruining an otherwise good thread, I think the moderators will do whatever they are empowered to do to keep it alive. However some threads are just too far gone by the time they are locked, half the posts need to be deleted to get back to the topics. just my two cents. regards, Håvard
Well you know I got message about all this from a concerned part… one his sentances rung true, unfortunatly…
“It isn’t all about Aloha”
Somehow I think this is the tone of swaylocks 2007
unless we all change it … quick!
Interesting. I just counted posts on this topic by 23 different people. Apparently this touches a nerve.
Hopefully, those who would turn this place into their forum for a pissing match would see this and understand that a lot of people don’t dig it.
I say let the free spirits fly, the strong characters expound, and the sages educate, but not at the cost of personal attacks. It just drags this place into the mud and it deserves better.
To bring this back to Kokua’s original point, it is a shame that a good topic gets shut down due to behavior of some. Perhaps the mod’s could keep a topic alive by deleting inappropriate posts.
Also, as Mr. Melville said, maybe the community as a whole could be a little more assertive to discourage bad attitides. Although I can’t see myself rebuking a veteran shaper.