Our Policy on Removing Discussions on NCL

[LauraS]

Hi there!

 

As some have mentioned, Cruise Critic has the right to determine what is and is not appropriate content for our cruise community.

 

We welcome the posting of both postive and negative discussions about any aspect of cruising. This includes specifics about your cruise, the ship, the service, and the company.

 

You all know we will remove harassment, flames etc. Goes without saying.

 

We also will remove, at our sole discretion, posts we believe are libelous or slanderous towards any cruise line. We will do this because Cruise Critic is in no position to prove or disprove any fact posted on the boards about a cruise line.

 

It is one thing to give your opinion or experience and say "The service on board the ship was poor, in my opinion. I waited 60 seconds for my milk".

 

It is quite another to post a rumor that an entire cruise might be cancelled. Add to the fact a member is stating they are somehow "in the know" -- which of course also cannot be proved or disproved.

 

You may certainly disagree with our decisions. That's fine. We request you do it via e-mail and not on the boards.

 

Cruise Critic's focus is to provide a forum for cruisers to enjoy themselves, and find information about their upcoming cruises. Discussions about posting policies are off topic and will be removed without notice.

 

I'm more than happy to answer any questions via e-mail at community@cruisecritic.com.

 

 

Laura

[Druke I]

Sounds reasonable to me.

[Cruise_More_Often]

Yes, most reasonable, and thank you!

[intrepid_guy]

I LOVE LAURA STERLING!!!!!

 

~Intrepid <-- grinning ear to ear

[Host CMLA]

Thanks for the clarification Laura. ;)

[cnmiranda]

I ask that anyone that feels this board is being overly moderated to please contact the community manager. It seems every negative Pride of Aloha thread, including many traveler reviews have been deleted.

[CruisinMatt]

Isn't the community manager Laura?

[gardencat]

Laura

Thanks for the clarification and thanks for putting it right up here where (hopefully) most people will see it.

A while ago I did try to post a message to let people, who might be new to the boards, know that discussing moderation of the boards, on the boards, was not allowed, and any problems should be referred to you, but that message seems to have disappeared too.

Now that it has been 'officially' posted it should stay here and have a better chance to be seen.

 

Thanks again.

[Host CMLA]

Isn't the community manager Laura?

Yes, Laura is the community manager. You can contact her at any time if you have any questions about how the board is moderated.

[newmexicoNita]

Laura, I agree you have every right to do what you think is right and fair. I remember back at the start of the war you set some guidelines then that I thought were unfair. I stayed away from CC for about a month, but realized I was cutting off my nose to spite my face. Not only do I respect your views I feel very strongly about anyone that will go to one board and knock or make accuarzations (spellings sucks) about another board. Thanks again, NMNita

[ptngr]

Thank you Laura for the clarification. This is very resonable and makes good sense. But may I make another suggestion?

 

In some of the removed threads, there were a lot of posts with a bunch of useful information posted before the "bad" post surfaced. It was a shame to lose pages of useful stuff. For example, in one of the threads that was pulled, there was a lot of useful information about dining on the POA, about which restaurants were opened when and when was the best time to go, etc. I subscribed to that thread for future reference, meaning to print out the info later. I could have kicked myself for not having done it right away since now it's all gone!

 

I'm imagining the ideal case (which may or may not be technically practical) of dealing with this issue. Say, a thread has 77 posts which are OK, and the 78th post (I'm just pulling random numbers here) is deemed unacceptable by CC standard. What I'd love to see is the 78th post removed and the thread closed while keeping the previous 77 OK posts for archival purpose.

 

I hope I haven't come across as being demanding or complaining. I truely appreciate all CC provides to members and even if nothing changes, it is still a wonderful service. I was just hoping that maybe we can make it 0.001% better!

 

Thank you.

[dosi]

I disagree with you. I CRUISED THE POA ON 6/7. IT WAS NOT GOOD. cnmiranda I believe this post will not be deleted.

 

I think what happens is after the negative review or comment is made then further down the thread things start turning either personal or one of the supposedly "in the know" people says something that is either not true or could cause a panic. That is why the moderators then have to pull the thread. There are still many many many threads on this site with negative comments about the Aloha, and it is my firm but sad belief there will probably be more in the future. There is no conspiracy or coverup here. Just a lot of unwarrented suspicion.

[Jeconk]

I agree with Ptngr. Why do entire threads have to be deleted due to one bad post? A lot of useful information has been shared including suggestions on how to have a better cruise on some of the deleted threads.

 

I subscribe to a similar posting board that is also closely moderated. (It is a sports related board) When they have a post that is either off topic, flaming, unfounded, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable, they simply delete the offending post and not the whole thread. When it is necessary to delete the whole thread, they delete all the posts, lock the thread and a moderator puts a single post on the thread as to why the thread was deleted so the mistake hopefully won't happen again.

 

I know I have received several e-mail's requesting information that I had posted in deleted threads. Perhaps this would be a more effective way to allow discussion to continue and information to be gathered when a post sends a thread awry.

[Host CMLA]

I agree with Ptngr. Why do entire threads have to be deleted due to one bad post? A lot of useful information has been shared including suggestions on how to have a better cruise on some of the deleted threads.

It does take time to go through all the posts and weed out what may be offensive and what isn't. I think the problem comes in when someone posts and breaks the rules and then other members react to it. Then you have post after post referring to the first post that violated the rules. Within those posts someone may then go back to the original discussion and contribute some valuable information. If you remove the original violating post, you have to remove all of those that refer to it. What if that means you have to remove valuable information as well? Then members get upset because you've removed some good information. It's a terrible catch 22 at times. My best advice is to ignore those that break the rules. Report them and let that post go away without ruining the thread. Unfortunately, that doesn't always happen and good threads become battle grounds.

[Jeconk]

Quite right Cecilla! But at the same time, there have been posts that we may think are o.k and respond to them and then someone complains and the whole thing goes away. Obviously getting into an agruement on the boards is going to get it removed, but how are we to know all the bad posts?

 

Like you said: It is a catch-22 for us all. (I like that phrase and I'm glad someone else still uses it!)

[LauraS]

I agree with Ptngr. Why do entire threads have to be deleted due to one bad post? A lot of useful information has been shared including suggestions on how to have a better cruise on some of the deleted threads.

 

In all honest, the time factor is at fault. Our "Mods" are volunteers....and it is extremely time consuming to weed through a long discussion and clear out individual posts. Unfortunately, they aren't online 24/7, so discussions have usually skyrocketed out of control.

 

Mods are instructed to move the entire post. With over 150,000 new posts per month, this is the only option at times.

 

Truth be told, the same subject usually rears its head in short order.

 

Laura