Happier Abroad Forum Community

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Perhaps my memory is playing tricks with me, but wasn't Blue Murder banned by zboy1 for being one of the trolls stalking PAN, and didn't Winston ask why he was banned at some later stage and then presumably restore his membership, presumably as per his request. Sorry if I'm wrong.

Cornfed wrote:Perhaps my memory is playing tricks with me, but wasn't Blue Murder banned by zboy1 for being one of the trolls stalking PAN, and didn't Winston ask why he was banned at some later stage and then presumably restore his membership, presumably as per his request. Sorry if I'm wrong.

viewtopic.php?f=33&t=14395&start=300

Winston » Sun Oct 11, 2015 7:41 am
I've unbanned Blue Murder. He emailed me and asked to be unbanned. I made him promise to behave civilly this time. So we will give him one more chance. Hope he will behave civilly. I know it's been said that people don't change, however, people can change their behavior, not necessarily who they are. But behavior modification has been proven in psychology so it is possible for a person to change their behavior.

Yohan wrote:

Cornfed wrote:Perhaps my memory is playing tricks with me, but wasn't Blue Murder banned by zboy1 for being one of the trolls stalking PAN, and didn't Winston ask why he was banned at some later stage and then presumably restore his membership, presumably as per his request. Sorry if I'm wrong.

viewtopic.php?f=33&t=14395&start=300

Winston » Sun Oct 11, 2015 7:41 am
I've unbanned Blue Murder. He emailed me and asked to be unbanned. I made him promise to behave civilly this time. So we will give him one more chance. Hope he will behave civilly. I know it's been said that people don't change, however, people can change their behavior, not necessarily who they are. But behavior modification has been proven in psychology so it is possible for a person to change their behavior.

Yeah, so it is possible that Blue Murder is some ugly, fat bitch of Irish Catholic descent posting from some God-forsaken Australian Outback town on the (absurdly generous) minimum wage pay of the Australian regime in order to pave the way for her fellow trolls, which may if fact be herself. I don't know who they are targeting. PAN hasn't been on the forum much.

As a new member myself, I find more and more often the topic subjects has nothing to do living abroad or traveling overseas. I like hearing your stories of the cultures and the people who are different than me. People like Davewe who put up relevant subject matter you don't want to lose. Yeah, I read the posts Ghost is alluding to. I couldn't care less what women you sleep with in Finland. Good for you. But be the knight you claim you are and keep it to yourself. As for myself, heading backing to the Philippines in a month like Marcos I am wary of posting photos of myself and my other for everybody. Winston should squash some of these useless posts, but its all about traffic and revenue so the quality will suffer

MarcosZeitola wrote:If we did make an exclusive forum, we should make it hidden too. We have a forum for members who went abroad exclusively, but it was not hidden. As a result, and I don't know if this goes for others as well, but I personally felt less comfortable to share pictures.

We should have a board that's actually off-limits for all non-trusted members as well as every single visitor without an account. This would be a different sub-forum from the main forum. Only established accounts should be allowed to access it.

Winston could also make more active members moderators, give them the ability to remove offensive content, spam and trolling more easily. Clean the place up a little. As valuable as free speech is, it should not be used as a justification to disrupt the community.

That's the point I've been trying to make! You can't have your cake and eat it too. The fact that some members have been banned for not-so-heavy views means there isn't even free speech to begin with. It's an illusion on this board. I'm really liking your hidden subforum. I say make it hidden as possible. On some Naruto Village Hidden in the Leaves type stuff. Only users who have actually left their armchairs and travelled (or have a SERIOUS interest/incentive to do so) should be able to see and interact with it. Why make it just one? We can designate an entire category to it to cover all aspects we see in the forum right now. Travel, food, culture, religion, money, health, self-improvement, and so on.

Blue Murder wrote:

MarcosZeitola wrote:If we did make an exclusive forum, we should make it hidden too. We have a forum for members who went abroad exclusively, but it was not hidden. As a result, and I don't know if this goes for others as well, but I personally felt less comfortable to share pictures.

We should have a board that's actually off-limits for all non-trusted members as well as every single visitor without an account. This would be a different sub-forum from the main forum. Only established accounts should be allowed to access it.

Winston could also make more active members moderators, give them the ability to remove offensive content, spam and trolling more easily. Clean the place up a little. As valuable as free speech is, it should not be used as a justification to disrupt the community.

That's the point I've been trying to make! You can't have your cake and eat it too. The fact that some members have been banned for not-so-heavy views means there isn't even free speech to begin with. It's an illusion on this board. I'm really liking your hidden subforum. I say make it hidden as possible. On some Naruto Village Hidden in the Leaves type stuff. Only users who have actually left their armchairs and travelled (or have a SERIOUS interest/incentive to do so) should be able to see and interact with it. Why make it just one? We can designate an entire category to it to cover all aspects we see in the forum right now. Travel, food, culture, religion, money, health, self-improvement, and so on.

I could start a poll in the Expat VIP Forum and see if the members there want the board hidden or not. At this point, no one is moderating it. Zboy, you wanna moderate it again? Or do we have any other volunteers?

Blue Murder, no one has been banned here for "not so heavy views". Where do you get that? No one here has been banned for having taboo views. They've only been banned for bad behavior, abuse, attacks on other members, lying and ignoring warnings.