I thought it might help understand what we are trying to achieve if I shared my current ruminations...
Essentially it is a balancing act, or more accurate a whole series of balancing acts each stacked on top of the other...
We want the place to be fun without it becoming totally frivolous.
So what is good for the boozer may not be good for the main forum. And there are times when even the regulars in the boozer need reminding that this is an open forum and not their own chat site.
We try to moderate fairly but also with a bit of humour.
We'll try to give reasons for decisions, sometimes the reasons may be pithy, witty or downright pissed off. Sometimes we don't quite get that right, we're humans after all. At times it can be a joyless job and the stroppy message to accompany a locked thread is the only joy in our miserable lives. Indulge us...
We want people to be able to have their say but we don't want the good posters to leave because the site is overrun by idiots.
Probably the hardest one. Ask half the users and they'll demand the freedom to call Carra a c*nt. Ask the other half and they think we should ban the first half immediately. We keep repeating it, this is a moderated forum, there are some key guidelines about respecting the club, the manager, the city that we will always enforce. Then there are threads, and perhaps even users who we will remove for editorial reasons, because we think that the site is better without them. It may seem harsh but it really isn't a restriction of your freedom of speech, there are plenty of less moderated LFC forums out there that you are free to use.
And following on from the above, the biggy, the bone of contention...
Some animals are more equal than others
Nobody is banned on a whim. We issue permanent bans rarely, approx one a day, which on a site with 37,000 members is tiny. When we do ban someone permanently lots of things are taken into account, the seriousness of the offence and previous posting record. Whether this is an aberration from someone who is normally an asset to the site or whether this is just another example of a pattern of disruptive posting. In short, if you are the sort of poster who contributes well thought out threads and posts to the site then you are more likely to be given second chances than someone who is constantly involved in one liner spats. This is nothing to do with old users v new users either, a short but excellent posting history is far more likely to cut you some slack than years of posting nonsense.
There is also an ethos to the site that is based as best we can on what we consider to be the Liverpool Way. Those posters who share that ethos may well be cut more slack if involved in an argument with a user who does not share that ethos. Maintaining a core of users who share the site's ethos is essential in maintaining that ethos. If that ethos is not for you then in all seriousness this site is probably not for you.
None of the above means that dissenting voices can not be heard, make your case politely and with reason and most views will be not only tolerated but actively debated. The existence of fans of other clubs on here is evidence of that. Similarly it does not mean that certain users have carte blanche to flout site rules. Nobody is unbannable. In many ways we expect higher standards from our scribes and writers than we do from the rest of you.
Hope that helps clarify a few things. As usual answering questions will be a welcome distraction from a long afternoon in the office.
