The Castanet Forum

[John Zeger]

The Castanet forum has been deteriorating for some time now due to the presence of a small group of immature and malicious individuals who have taken over the forum and are using it to stage a hate campaign against myself and CRCP. They seem intent to launch a letter-writing program to newspapers and city council telling them that they should ignore CRCP. The first example of this campaign was a letter in the Daily Courier on October 19, 2006 under the heading "Why does CRCP have such media sway?" The letter contains lies such as "the founder of the CRCP...blocks anyone who has differing views or questions the group from making comments on their website?" But lies have always been part of the fascist program and the bigger the better. Expect more of those in the future from this group of desperate people. Also expect a legal action to be brought against the letter writer Dean Rempel who posts on the Castanet forum using the initials dmgr.

Dig this, this rat pack of anonymous people is trying to tell the media what to print and what not to print. Sound like a fascist tactic? It is. You see, they don't like our message and feel personally threatened by it as they all have a vested economic interest in the growth of Kelowna and if that growth is slowed or eventually stabilized as CRCP advocates then they will not be able to continue to pursue their self-interest and greedy lifestyles. Therefore they want to silence us at all costs including denying us access to the media and to city council. Unfortunately for these children, the media will be able to recognize a group of unstable crackpots and their motives for what they are. Also there are legal remedies available to myself and CRCP which will be explored. As for city council, they never listen to anyone anyway.

[John Zeger]

I posted a new topic "Lies, hate and defamation on the Castanet forum" there this morning and it only survived one hour before it was locked by the moderator. The posts that were made since I started it were very benign so it couldn't have been shut down for that reason. I think that it was closed because the topic was just too much of an embarassment for the moderator as it was an acknowledgement on their part and the participants of that thread that the Castanet forum indeed was a place where lies, hate, and defamation were being spread.

[Rick Shea]

johnzeger said:

The first example of this campaign was a letter in the Daily Courier on October 19, 2006

As I recall, the person who wrote that letter (or perhaps it was another member of the group?) implied that I am the co-founder of the CRCP. Interesting that they can't even get this right.

Does this constitute confounding about co-founding?

(couldn't resist that one)

[John Zeger]

These people aren't concerned with facts and the accuracy of what they say, Rick, they are only interested in slander and defamation.

[propeopl]

Jo the moderator at Castanet has banned me for daring to question the opinions she has expressed there. She'll claim of course that it was because I didn't follow the rules of the forum, but we all know it's just censorship. Typical.

[Rick Shea]

I've found Jo to be pretty fair in the past, although it's true that the majority of the people posting on the subjects you addressed on
Castanet clearly have a definite bias in one direction, just as other groups may have a bias in another direction. What did you post that caused you to be banned?

[Rick Shea]

I had a brief visit to the Castanet forum today, and I see that the current group posting at Castanet has fallen for the highrise argument hook, line, and stinker.

The propaganda machine of the UGM is being rewarded with the typical responses.

[John Zeger]

I logged on to several blogs this past weekend to see what people were saying about the Liberal Leadership Convention. After having become familiar with other forums, I must say that the Castanet forum is the least intelligent, most undisciplined forum I have seen.

[Rick Shea]

I remain hopeful that, at some point, we'll see more meta-puerilistic reasoning and discussion at that forum. That will be, in large part, a function of how the moderators manage the forum.

[John Zeger]

The last time I checked the Castanet forum the regulars were still engaged in personal attacks. I was going to respond but then I thought "why bother?". I don't have the time nor interest in responding to attacks and lies said about me knowing that my response will only be met by more personal attacks and lies. Such is the nature of that mindless forum and the people that participate in it.

[John Zeger]

This article from the Sympatico website sheds some light on the source of the problem although, as I have said before, the Castanet forum is probably one of the most flagrant examples of such abuses of all the forums that I have seen.

tinyurl.com/2o4grr

[nick]

It's likely that just about everyone has, at one time or another, been seduced by the freedom of being able to speak their mind with no accountability. There will always be those who fall prey more often. What's to be done? Moral implications aside, censorship can quickly become a full time job on a busy forum.

[John Zeger]

nick said:

censorship can quickly become a full time job on a busy forum.

That's true, Nick, and I wouldn't want to be the administrator of the Castanet forum, but I think there are solutions available to the administrator such as applying the rules of proper behaviour all the time instead of just occasionally and being consistent in the application of those rules to all participants. Beyond that I think that frequent violators of the rules and those that continue to spread lies and misinformation and who's obvious intent is to try to defame people be banned from the forum outrightly. The latter is something I have been told that the Castanet administrator is not willing to do. I can only surmise that she is lacking the backbone to do it.

[nick]

In a perfect world, we would all play by the same rules, we would all conduct ourselves in a civil manner, and internet trolls and flamers would not exist. Alas.....

I wonder that, given an even moderately busy board, and I suppose Castanet would fall in there somewhere, just how many hours a day it would take to review each and every post? Given that most admin/mod positions on this type of forum are filled by volunteers these time demands could be considerable.

I have seen a number of different 'management' styles on discussion forums, from those where 'anything goes' to those that are ruled with the proverbial iron fist. In the area of 'recreational' boards like Castanet, as opposed to those that are more informational in nature like this board, the more successful seem to be those that are 'self-moderated', wherein peer-pressure and reader comments tend to set the tone, and management steps in on occasion to deal with extreme cases and repeat offenders. There will always be aggressive personalities and over-opinionated types, but as much as they may 'sour' some discussions, it is my experience that they are in the minority, and eventually they will fall in stride with the rest of the membership or find some other forum where the membership thinks and acts along the same lines as they do. For myself, I treat message boards much the same as real world social circles, if I find that I am keeping poor company, then it's time to move on. There have been situations where I felt compelled to educate others on the error of their ways (hint of sarcasm here), but this inevitably bears bitter fruit.

In short, the final decision is always mine, if I don't like the company on a forum, I can vote with my feet.

[John Zeger]

Perhaps not going there is best as whenever I make an appearance the same group of rats (Canada4Life, Crash99, BigBadBootyDaddy, Odepius, LoneWolf, and others) comes out of the woodwork, and by participating I am just bringing myself down to their level.

I think that many other participants of that forum would like to engage in a meaningful discussion there as well, but the presence of these yahoos and the low standards set by the moderator have compromised the reputation of the Castanet forum as a place for serious dialogue.

Also one thing I find really ugly about that forum is the mob mentality. A few of those yahoos go after someone on the forum and then one by one many weak personalities fall in line to get their licks in and to gain the favour of the others. In the end the mob convinces itself that it's right about everything because there are more of them. When I'm on the Castanet forum, I feel like I'm back in junior high where I think many of its members are still stuck mentally. Have you ever seen Lord of the Flies?

The mob has always been one of the ugliest expressions of human nature and is alive and well on the Castanet forum. It's another thing that shouldn't be tolerated by the moderator, yet it is. All in all the Castanet forum features some pretty unsavory characters that are allowed too much expression by a weak moderator.