New Rules For The Deck Needed? Discussion

[Brian Essi]

I only fear his efforts are too late, as I suspect he's now left with only those last to leave a sinking ship.

There we go again - insinuate the Deck is dead, people are leaving, (insert wringing hands and tears.) You WISH. There are people that would like nothing better than the Deck, and for that matter, the Observer, to disappear. Then they'd have free reign to control the message. Insinuating the Deck is dying is a typical ploy of desperation.

That's the narrative and that's the goal. Discredit and weaken The Deck ahead of the referendum:
1. Threaten The Deck with legal actions, into a defensive posture.
2. Trash The Deck with trolls and bullies so that one can declare that "The Deck is full of crazy."
3. Distract from good information and discourage from good postings so that the casual observer looks elsewhere.
4. Declare (over and over) that The Deck is lost, dead, losing people. Hold out hope that The Deck can be saved. Clutch pearls.

Boom. You see the strategy and tactics in action, you see it played out, here.

Bump

[Dan Alaimo]

Perhaps Todd was referring to recent events like vulgar profanity, something not seen here before, and a few threads that became entirely unreadable due to the back and forth, incessant replies by 1-2 people.

These events are not indicative of the entire Deck, nor are they of a longstanding nature, and you know it as well as does everyone else.

I agree with Todd that a few people and a few threads got out of control. That DOES NOT mean the Deck is doomed. In reality, the fact that we are all still here right now discussing it indicates to me that the Deck works pretty well and will survive these kamikaze attacks.

Applause.

[Meg Ostrowski]

I appreciate the work that went into these new proposed rules. But rules require monitoring and enforcement. This is a volunteer project with limited manpower.

I need simpler guidelines and I’m a sucker for acronyms so here’s a first attempt at honoring the project.

O wn your words, speak in the first person.
B e on your best behavior, your reputation depends on it.
S erve your community, that’s the point here.
E xpect to be challenged, it’s how we grow.
R efer to others by their proper name or title only, it’s the civil way to engage.
V et others’ posts for accuracy, it helps us get to the truth.
E xercise your freedom to express yourself, it keeps things interesting.
R eference direct quotes only, never speak for others unless given permission to do so.

This is very good, Meg. I think there is room and a need for both. You guidelines are short and sweet enough that they can be promoted and reiterated easily. I think there's a need for the longer more specific version when the time comes to deal with difficult situations as they come up. No one has the time to monitor every item, but they provide something to fall back on when someone commits a particularly egregious offense. It's happened recently and will happen again.

Thanks Dan. You make a good point. I wish it weren't necessary but I agree.

[Jim Kenny]

I'm realizing that I must not have understood the origins and the mission of the "project." I thought it was an inclusive forum. This thread demonstrates it's not.

I've come to realize that the Deck is closer to a demolition derby where only 20 or so participate. They collude outside the ring against other participants, as they prepare to recklessly drive the same ideas and irrationally formed impressions into each other, over, and over, and over.

Lastly, they do it without much regard to the damage being done to anyone in or around the ring. Explain to me again, how is our community better for these actions?

Please remember that I'm a newby, so I can't possibly operate with the same clarity that the 20 or so of you have, or as well as those who might have joined as recently as May 2015 and yet somehow have received special dispensation.

[Bridget Conant]

Same old same old. Call it a "gang," use the word "collude," or call it the "ring." More delusional rhetoric to malign the Deck.

How about the Build Lakewood or "Lakewood Ohio Community" Facebook pages that delete comments that don't align with their views? So that is OK by you but individuals expressing all sorts of opinions here is a "gang" and "colluders" when they don't agree with you.

[Jim O'Bryan]

Same old same old. Call it a "gang," use the word "collude," or call it the "ring." More delusional rhetoric to malign the Deck.

How about the Build Lakewood or "Lakewood Ohio Community" Facebook pages that delete comments that don't align with their views? So that is OK by you but individuals expressing all sorts of opinions here is a "gang" and "colluders" when they don't agree with you.

Again, so much of this is merely projections of what they think, do, or was told.

None of it based in truth.

.

[Jim Kenny]

Ms. Contant: Yes, I too was offended when the Build Lakewood's Faceback page once deleted posts that someone found distasteful because of the rude remarks used to counter what had been posted on the web page. I and others strongly shared our disappointment and this practice was abandoned. It is evidenced by the fact that Pam Wetula and Michael Deneen frequently post on the page. It even gets an occasional post from Brian Essi, even though I realize he disavows any membership with Save Lakewood Hospital, despite representing the group at City Council meetings. My point is the discourse is civilized.

If the Deck isn't suffering, why did JOB start this thread? Why did he convene a group to study the issue? Why is that group struggling to identify a solution? Lastly, why do you and others not classified as "newbys" continually take immediate offense at my view that the Deck is suffering without every inquiring how I might have formed such an opinion?

Lakewood, we've got a problem. We're it. And we can't solve it by immediately labeling people who we disagree with. Heck, Gary Rice was once labeled "schill for the Mayor" by James Fitzgibbons simply because Gary was attempting to ask the SLH community to no longer fight the issue once the hospital was officially closed. Yes, Gary Rice. Read it here:

http://lakewoodobserver.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22709

Again, we can't achieve a greater sum by only relying on subtraction. In my observation in the more than nine years that I've contributed and observed the deck is that anyone with an opinion that doesn't conform to the norms of the few is immediately discredited and labeled, many times in unflattering terms.

The deck can survive just as it operates today. If does, however, it will still be operating in ways that prompted JOB and other founders to ask how it ever deviated so far from its mission.

[Jim Kenny]

[quote="Jim O'Bryan"][quote="Bridget Conant"]Same old same old. Call it a "gang," use the word "collude," or call it the "ring." More delusional rhetoric to malign the Deck.

How about the Build Lakewood or "Lakewood Ohio Community" Facebook pages that delete comments that don't align with their views? So that is OK by you but individuals expressing all sorts of opinions here is a "gang" and "colluders" when they don't agree with you.[/quote]


Again, so much of this is merely projections of what they think, do, or was told.

None of it based in truth.

.[/quote]

Mr. O'Bryan: Why do you choose language that only divides us?

Who, pray tell, holds the proxy on truth?

And please don't start a new thread that mocks me or others that you might disagree by using language that only a select few know they are privy to understanding. You're welcome to revisit your definition for "projections" here for the benefit of all.

[Jim O'Bryan]

If the Deck isn't suffering, why did JOB start this thread? Why did he convene a group to study the issue? Why is that group struggling to identify a solution? Lastly, why do you and others not classified as "newbys" continually take immediate offense at my view that the Deck is suffering without every inquiring how I might have formed such an opinion?

The deck can survive just as it operates today. If does, however, it will still be operating in ways that prompted JOB and other founders to ask how it ever deviated so far from its mission.

Jim

This topic was started a year ago, no wait, 12 years ago. We have openly discussed "rules" and any changes at public meetings and on the Deck since it started.

No Founder has wondered why it is the way it is. The founders have seen this city go through at least 3 civil wars, where it gets ugly and testy.

Go back to many of my posts of January - February last year. I assure Deck posters and readers it was going to get real ugly and it did.

Multiple baseless attacks on the DEck and posters by those that disagree, it blew up, but it is settling back down, as it has before.

No one can count the actions fo a couple people trying to destroy something that has served the community as "everyone on the Deck."

When a punk kid walks into a park and writes obscenities around on the equipment, do we blame the city? Everyone at the park? Or do we take care of the mess and move on?

Seriously, we have never talked, to my knowledge you have spoken to no founders. I am sure you never read Ken's book, so you actual knowledge of this project is extremely limited.

But I am sure over the coming years, you will understand it more and more. It is like developing a taste and understanding of scotch, it takes time, by design.

For the record, we had discussion between 2 SLH people, 2 Build Lakewood people, and 2 that didn't care about hospital about regulations on the Deck. The general feeling was, leave it as it is. There is not upside in stifling discussions that are going on in other places anyway. Again, take people let them know what it is really about, and they come to the same conclusions. Dan Alaimo used to be one of my largest critics, and critic of the project. Once he understood it, he became a fan and now a moderator.


.

[cmager]

Let's flesh this out and get this straight...
* Mr. Kenny: The Deck is flawed, divisive, and bullying to others, as though in collusion (repeat).
* Citizen Observers post their findings and truth about Lakewood Hospital (this is undesirable to those that be).
* Therefore, those Citizen Observers are flawed, divisive, and bullying to others, as though in collusion.
* And therefore, the findings and truth of those Citizen Observers is flawed (repeat).

[Jim Kenny]

Jim: I haven't read Ken Warren's book, yet I can promise you that I will seek it out and read it.

You'll be pleased to know that Ken Warren and I met. He reached out to me as he followed a blog that I once authored:

http://fullcleveland.blogspot.com/

Ken invited me to meet him at the library in the winter of 2007. We discussed our shared interest in objective journalism and the need to give voices to many. He shared with me his passion for your mutual project. He asked me if I might contribute. I enlisted the next day when I opened an account on the deck. Strangely, he and I never discussed it again. In retrospect, I was too busy on too many other fronts as a parent at that time of a middle schooler and an elementary school student, as well as working as an independent business communications consultant. Later that same year I gave Ken notice that I alerted Wall Street Journal's media reporter Lee Gomes about how LO outed the pedophile preying on kids at the Cyber Cafe. I did so because I liked what I perceived happening at the project. As you know, I don't share that opinion today.

Nonetheless, I continued to watch and participate, yet mostly passively over the years. During this time I've discussed the project in the community with Steve Davis whenever I might encounter my former backyard neighbor. I've also evaluated it in 2013 over a lengthy conversation when I first met Lauren Rich Fine. Please know I have no reason for you to expect that you would have knowledge of these discussions, but regardless I do believe I've invested the consideration to be entitled to my opinion.

Please then appreciate, however, as you don't know my history with the project, yet do hold the fact that I joined it in Jan. 2007, that I struggle to comprehend why you needed to dismiss my opinions by labeling me a "newby" and referencing me with phural pronouns. If we both want the project to survive and build the community and not be a record of its demise, I would encourage you and others to use more consideration. To do so would allow this forum to champion what we share, as opposed to forcing our differences through a magnifying glass as that produces a power that can be highly destructive and difficult to contain.

[Jim O'Bryan]

Jim: I haven't read Ken Warren's book, yet I can promise you that I will seek it out and read it.

You'll be pleased to know that Ken Warren and I met. He reached out to me as he followed a blog that I once authored:

http://fullcleveland.blogspot.com/

Ken invited me to meet him at the library in the winter of 2007. We discussed our shared interest in objective journalism and the need to give voices to many. He shared with me his passion for your mutual project. He asked me if I might contribute. I enlisted the next day when I opened an account on the deck. Strangely, he and I never discussed it again. In retrospect, I was too busy on too many other fronts as a parent at that time of a middle schooler and an elementary school student, as well as working as an independent business communications consultant. Later that same year I gave Ken notice that I alerted Wall Street Journal's media reporter Lee Gomes about how LO outed the pedophile preying on kids at the Cyber Cafe. I did so because I liked what I perceived happening at the project. As you know, I don't share that opinion today.

Nonetheless, I continued to watch and participate, yet mostly passively over the years. During this time I've discussed the project in the community with Steve Davis whenever I might encounter my former backyard neighbor. I've also evaluated it in 2013 over a lengthy conversation when I first met Lauren Rich Fine. Please know I have no reason for you to expect that you would have knowledge of these discussions, but regardless I do I believe I've invested the consideration to be entitled to my opinion.

Please then appreciate, however, as you don't know my history with the project, yet do hold the fact that I joined it in Jan. 2007, that I struggle to comprehend why you needed to dismiss my opinions by labeling me a "newby" and referencing me with phural pronouns. If we both want the project to survive and build the community and not be a record of its demise, I would encourage you and others to use more consideration. To do so would allow this forum to champion what we share, as opposed to forcing our differences through a magnifying glass as that produces a power that can be highly destructive and difficult to contain.

Jim

Some of the phrasing and terminology you use, would make one think you had not the depth of knowledge you are speaking of. It was Stephen Davis that loved the concept of give them enough room to hang themselves. It was Ken Warren that fought for, allow them to be defined by their words, thoughts and actions. I am sure Ken told you about the star charts and notes he kept on everyone. What always amazed Ken about this project was how quickly it cut through the BS to the heart of people, issues and what they really are.. Ken wanted a way to prove his knowledge base when it came to community dynamics. He wrote many papers on that. He also thrived on testing people, 100% of the time. He would say things and do things just to see how one would react or try to explain or get out of. Ken was also aghast at the BS and misdirection that occurred with the WestEnd and later with civic groups and Phase III. In the end he felt civic leadership had let down the city through selfishness and a lack of understanding. Some of this may be due to what he was actually going through in his professional life, outline in his published resignation letter.

Lauren Rich Fine who I just spoke with last week, saw this project through a completely different set of glasses. We met where she declared the LO to be the future of civic publishing. Yet she did not nor does she still understand the project for what it is. Her background in the financial side of print media, she believed it would save huge Wallstreet media corporations, by enslaving residents to undercut local efforts in news, for the good of the big corporations. I mean that is what she did for a living with Merrill Lynch. We cared less about the finances and more about the community, and to her dismay we passed on working with AOL, Yahoo and Google for what we cared about. It would seem that the biggest problems corporations have with the Observer model, is we are too laid back. No editorial board, so no backing of politicians, businesses, etc. a source of funding for media. "The Plain Dealer backs XXXXX" followed by bought ads. Another problem "real media" doesn't like, you cannot buy stories, but you can submit them for free. Google people rolled their eyes at that one.

Ken was looking for a place back in the area before his death, not Lakewood, so we talked many times before he died. Ken loved reading the Deck but stop posting as he lived in New York. At the last meeting his opinion was the same, "Let the racists frame themselves as racists." "Let the bullies show themselves and how little they offer." "Let the foolish show themselves to be that." Do not censor the Deck.

As for the project, if you liked the work done by Observers during the Brother Petty nightmare, how can you not like what the Observer is doing now? Civic journalism broke the single largest story in Lakewood's history in 50 years. Not only did we break it, we have caught numerous elected officials in outright lies to the community. You might not like Essi's style, but the amount the muddy bad water he has uncovered is staggering. What is coming I think will blow people's minds. No matter if you are for a hospital, against a hospital we should all pause and reflect on a Government that is not truthful with its residents. Ken was alive when we started the Hospital story, and had much to say about the players and the plans.

Ken is gone, and we move on. Recently, the past year has shown that in time of deep personal conflict in the city, one should at least consider alternatives. But I will ask you as I am sure Ken would. Do we change a highly successful project, that underlines the openness and eagerness of a community to be hijacked, changed, or destroyed by a couple people? I think not.

What say you?

.

[Jim Kenny]

JOB: What say I? I've said it before. Let's improve the culture related to this forum so it attracts a greater level of thought, which would spur healthier exchanges. Like any community, it starts by the norms that are established and upheld by its leaders. Jim, with all due respect, you've asserted yourself as a leader in this forum and rightfully so. People have followed. Your words and actions, and even somethings you don't respond to, point to how you want participants in this forum to behave. When you marginalized my opinion by labeling me, you demonstrated to others the norms and behavior expected of them. When you create threads that speak in a vernacular that only insiders truly get, you leave many of us on the sidelines. Worse yet, when this vernacular is more often an inside joke, this forum becomes a party that only a few feel comfortable attending. I arrived at that point. I walked away. However, I learned from a friend that Michael Deneen was taking another liberty with the truth when he defined in this thread why I no longer participated on the Deck, I felt an obligation to the rational observers of this forum to correct his miscarriage of the truth. I stepped back in. I called it uncivilized. This thread has only cemented this opinion.

Lastly, why was it necessary that I had to go to such great lengths to qualify my opinions of the Deck? I'm of the impression that no one else in this thread has had to face such an interrogation, so why me? Is it because my opinion differs from the group? Again, your actions influence the norms. When this community norms are the problem, we can only look to ourselves for the answers.

So, Jim, what say I? I say what Mahatma Gandhi said, “You must be the change you want to see in the world.”

[Jim Kenny]

JOB: Admittedly, I don't hold a candle to the history you and many have with Ken Warren. Your background on him as you shared prompted me to wonder what would Ken say, if prompted by your question. I found it in a 2008 thread deliberating the same subject:

"In an open civic communication channel that aspires, as I believe the LO does, to build the community's capacity for common learning, understanding, judgment and commitment, the best moderation is self-moderation.

So I will propose an order of self-moderation rooted in a common commitment to understanding, along with consideration, fairness and respect for another person.

Such self-moderation involves speaking to issues, to differences in views, to differences in relationships, to differences in content.

Self-moderation avoids labeling other people and making personal attacks.

Self-moderation might possibly reduce the levels of communication directed to a person with the intention to annoy, disqualify, humiliate, infuriate, intimidate, mislead, offend, or vilify."

More on that thread here: http://lakewoodobserver.com/deck/viewto ... engagement

JOB, thank you for encouraging me to seek out Ken's thinking. It reminded of what was my first impression of Ken, which is we both value opinions and mutual respect equally, and one doesn't trump the other because the ends somehow justify the means.

[Lori Allen _]

While I would concur that personal attacks and name-calling should be left out of conversations among Deck posters, I do not feel that the same should apply to elected officials.

Elected officials (e.g. Mayor, council) are politicians. Not everyone is going to view them favorably or agree with their job performance. I believe the courts and the 1st Amendment uphold the right to speak of elected officials in any manner as long as such speech is not threatening and does not create a clear and present danger. I feel the same should apply here. If the mayor and council cannot handle criticisms of their job performance, perhaps they should consider resigning.

FWIW.