ChatterBank1 min ago
The Referee's Decision
15 Answers
For goodness' sake! Why can't people grasp that - when you're playing football, for example - it doesn't matter in the least what you think happened...all that matters is what the referee thinks happened.
On AnswerBank, the Editor is the 'referee'. If he/she deems you've overstepped the site's rules, the whistle gets blown...end of story. Live with it. That's my suggestion.
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Yes, of course the referee must be the arbiter when rules are broken, but the questions that are being deleted have no offensive or off-topic content whatever. That's as ludicrous as a referee sending a player off because he didn't like his face. I don't think many people would accept that as fair judgement. And why is this a new phenomenon? I don't believe the number of questions breaking the rules has risen. The fact is, a site like this is made what it is by the users, not the editors who are not the people supplying answers (at least not officially). If the users can't get answers to their questions they won't come here and the site will die. And it is also odd that the questions asked about, for example, speeding, which bring a wave of knee-jerk condemnation from the more opinionated members, never seem to be deleted. If there is a problem with the administration of the site, then we have a perfect right to ask for it to be looked into, or be given a valid explanation of why this is happening.
It depends whether the Editor's decision is reasonable. For example, I came here today and discovered that another one of my answers has been banned since yesterday. I was expecting it to be the one in which I suggested killing everybody in the world except for the Isle of Wight, but was slightly surprised to find that it was in fact the one in which I accurately answered that there are 100,000 million stars in a galaxy. Such a contrast might lead some people to think that the Editor has strange moral values (or at least that he/she doesn't know much about astronomy :-)
With respect QM, questions that would have been accepted until only recently are suddenly being banned, with no indication in the change to accepted practices. If the site has suddenly changed management or changed its policies perhaps it would be fair to let those of us who have been using it know where we are going wrong. Perhaps we could have some examples of what is acceptable and what is not.
Dear Bernardo et al, it doesn't depend on "whether the Editor's decision is reasonable" at all. To believe that is to believe that the AnswerBank is some sort of democracy...it isn't, it is a - largely benevolent, I find - autocracy.
There are rules to guide this particular 'community', but only one arbiter as to their interpretation. You may not agree with such a system, but that's the way it is. Hence my 'referee' analogy.
"Controversial penalty...blah-blah...That was never a foul!...blah-blah...Hands!...blah-blah...Aw, come on, ref!...blah-blah."
None of that matters. If the ref's notebook at the end of the game says: "Reds 2, Blues 0", that's the score you'll see in your Sunday paper.
You miss the point, Moonraker. As you say re football referees, there is a controlling body over and above the individual referee called FIFA. Would you care to tell me who the equivalent 'Supreme Being' is here on AnswerBank?
The only one there is is the boss/board of directors of UK Netguide...if they are the owners. Presumably he/they are satisfied with the Editor's performance in upholding the site's clearly-stated aims.
It's not your task and it's not my task or any other AB member's task to decide whether he/she should be 'kicked into touch', as you put it, or made to do the job differently; it's their task.
Until such time as they institute a polling-system, whereby we can vote democratically on the site's methodology/editor's approach, we possess no rights in these matters. So what is being gained by the constant whining on about it?
For me...I'm claiming 'end of story' right here. My thanks to everyone who has contributed, pro or con, but I really can't be bothered going on trying to explain something so glaringly obvious.
I am not saying I disagree with you Quizmonster, indeed there is nothing you have written that I had not thought of myself... yet there is a paradox in there somewhere - and I don't mean just in the AB. If the Ed. is an abosolute monarch, then why publish regulations and guidelines? I am thinking of this as a philosophical question rather than as a bone of contention with this particular Ed. If a ruler publishes rules and regulations, they are in a sense, defining and limiting their power. Why publish them if (hypothetical if) they are then going to break them? I am not surprised that some people are confused and feel cheated. They feel they have gone by the published rules, and now they feel there was some other, unpublished, rule that operated at some other level. I have already written elsewhere that I think there is a "grassroots up" push for "democratising" fora - in general. In the meantime, whilst I do not share the feelings of those who have written they will be leaving because of the editing, I am not surprised, and can understand their feelings.
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