Muscatine

tlou wrote "BOTTOM LINE IS THIS... we should be able to get to the point that we can handle our conversations as adults & not need a mediator or a judgment about what kind of neighbor we are." AMEN!

I read about this 5 year old in Florida who has a form of autism and his teacher had him in front of the class and asked the rest of the class to tell what they did not like about him - then had the class vote on whether or not he should be allowed to be in their class. He was voted out! I am having a really hard time with this story. So if we let everyone vote on the things we write, pretty soon no one will write for fear of being ridiculed and disgraced - well SOME will still carry on- LOL

The point is - we should be free to express our thoughts and conversly be free to listen to others thoughts without attacking and basically putting that poster in a defensive position. If you don't agree with another posters idealogy - don't read their posts but you don't have to trash them with some system of plus and minus.

You guys are right, it doesn't really matter to me what someone else is rated.  I either like a post or dislike it based on its content.  My concern is, if they were to start allowing people access to certain options(like posting photos) based on their rank, someone is bound to get screwed.  It just doesn't seem right to me.  I don't know, when you get right down to it, the whole rating system just seems a little silly to me, it kind of makes me giggle.  So now I'm really wondering what happens if one were to hit the report button underneath their one post??  Any ideas??

Yes, I was off today..... The wife has kept busy with that darn honey-do-list of hers. Our relationship is 50/50. We each make a list of things we want done. We discuss it. Then we do her list........ Heck, sometimes I forget I even had a list.

Sorry for taking so long to follow up here - been swamped.  Horrified by the story justcurious relates above... but here's what I think is most wrong about what happened: those were children.  I think adults should teach children social skills, how to relate to others, how to deal with conflict and people who are different.  Letting children govern themselves seems wrong to me.  Just my opinion.

On the other hand, I don't think it's right to treat adults like children either.  Which brings me to nedl's comment:

Hell Tarrall, I can make your job easier. I'll just post elsewhere. That way you won't have to keep track of the times I "annoy" others.

One major reason for the new ratings system is so NL staff don't have to "keep track" of our users.  Instead of treating you guys like children, we've moved towards a system of self-governance so our users can decide for themselves what constitutes acceptable behaviour.

I very much hope that this won't mean that dissenting opinions won't be tolerated.  I'd personally prefer it if people can share different views - politics, local business reviews, whatever - without feeling unwelcome, if they're doing so in a civil manner.

However, past experience has shown that some restriction is required.  I think the problem with our original "everything's completely anonymous" model was the lack of personal accountability.  Even with total anonymity, most folks are fairly polite and friendly... but one bad apple makes the place miserable for everyone.  The friendlies get tired of the nastiness and leave, while the bad apple has to keep escalating, trying to get a rise out of whoever's left.

Getting rid of anonymity helped.  I hope the rating system can help as well (by making people more accountable for their behaviour) but it's obviously not there yet.  Hopefully with some more work we can give you guys the ability to shun the folks who are genuinely harmful to the discussion area without also discouraging different points of view.

           -Robert.-