Posted by ksvt on February 4, 2001, at 19:57:45
In reply to Re: examples?, posted by Dr. Ted on February 3, 2001, at 16:18:06
>What's the point of your post? The overwelming majority of those people who regularly post here have no trouble understanding the bounds of civility, in spite of the supposedly awful lack of clear standards. It seems to me that in the main, the people who are so bothered by the lack of standards and other perceived deficiencies of this site, never post about anything else. They don't seem to be here to solicit emotional support or to offer it to others, or to exchange anecdotal information about different medications. Those who would rather only engage in a debate about the problems with this site very rarely take into account its benefits to many people, perhaps because you've (they've) never tried to use it in a constructive participatory manner. Sure the system may be a bit autocratic, but I'm willing to accept that when balanced against the many benefits. What purpose is served by joining in here solely to trash something? Ksvt
It would be helpful if you could direct researchers to other sites where the administration style is similar to the one here. My study indicates this site represents an extreme in administration styles for on-line self-help sites. To date, I have identified no other site that meet all of the following criteria:
> > no detailed guidelines for participation are offered,
> > multiple diagnoses are discussed on the same page,
> > personally identifying information is permitted in posts,
> > posts perceived as offensive are left in the archive as an example of what not to do,
> > as an example to the group, contributors deemed unwelcome are publicly chastised for vague behavior,
> > an administrator offers pseudo-therapeutic insights in the context of publicly blocking unwanted guests.
>
> Several researchers who study on-line therapeutic activities, and who study technology mediated communication are watching this site. Perhaps examples of similar sites where an administrator’s offers only minimal guidelines for participation, and where public chastisement is the preferred method for keeping things on-track would be instructive.
poster:ksvt
thread:495
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20001124/msgs/563.html