Fire and Ice Twilight Fan Forum

Hi guys,

As per Mallie's suggestion over in the conventions thread, I just thought I'd give you the opportunity to discuss/complain about how you think the admins and mods moderate and run The Fire and Ice Twilight Fan Forum.

But before we "throw ourselves to the dogs", so to speak, we feel it's only fair that the mods and admin get a chance to speak, and get the opportunity to defend the way we work things around here.

Fire and Ice started as a small forum with the few of us who were over at the Twilight Lexicon, continuously posting in the Aussie Thread. Mallie started us out in the hopes that we'd have the opportunity to discuss EVERYTHING we wanted to, seeing as we were limited over at the lex to only discuss things pertaining to Australia, nothing else.

Now, over the year, Fire and Ice has grown, as has the number of admins and moderators as Mallie needed help to make sure that everything ran smoothly and to ensure that there was no victimisation, no bullying and above and beyond all to help ensure that everyone here has a good time and can feel safe on F&I, talking about Twilight, our lives, Twilight, school, work, The Podcast, Robert Pattinson and Twilight.

We are NOT trying to victimise you, even if you think we are, by deleting your posts or locking threads and topics. If we've done ANY of that, it's for a reason, not because we've felt like it. If we've asked you to moderate your behavior, it's because we don't want to offend people, and we'd like to keep the environment here light and friendly.

That is not to say that we are perfect.

We're human. We make mistakes. We have bad days too, and sometimes we'll break the rules, but above all, we try our best to uphold them because we WANT it to be fun here. We WANT to be able to chat with people from all over Australia, and all over the world about Twilight.

Is it so wrong for us to ask for you guys to try to do the same thing?

Now, I know there's also the complaint about "abuse of power" in terms of banning people. As far as I'm aware, there have only been one, maybe two max bans imposed on people, and we had our reasons. Not because we're mean dictators who want to stop anyone who has a different opinion to us - difference in opinion keeps things INTERESTING. Debating and friendly argument is fine - we welcome that - it's just when it takes a nasty turn that we have to intervene. We're not trying to censor your thoughts or censor your opinions - after all, WE are Australian - a country where its people have Freedom of Speech - we're just asking that you try to be mindful of others before posting something that can and will offend or alienate people. It's fine for you to calmly tell everyone you dislike a character, or that you don't want people to be screaming in your ear at the prescreening, but we ask you be mindful of your language in expressing it. It's a pretty safe bet if you're using derogatory language you should probably re-think your diction, unless you want someone to ask you to change it, or to edit it so that, say, for example, younger members of the forum aren't offended. We're just asking that the rules we've set down to ensure everyone has fun on here are adhered to as very best as you can.

Also, some comments over in the other thread re: other Twilight forums seem to have been misinterpreted -- we're not saying that we're a superior forum to the others! Each forum is run differently for different reasons. This is just the way we try to run Fire and Ice. We're not having a go at other forums, nor their rules or moderation choices. Like I said, each forum is run differently. That's not to say one way is superior to another, but different rules and situations apply to different forums.

Guys, please. We don't want to be seen as the bad guys - we're just fangirls (and boys) like you. We're not out to be dictators, and we just want it to be fun here. But we need your help for that. All we're asking is that you try your best to stick to the rules so we can all have a fun time here on Fire and Ice.

Is that so much to ask?

xx The Fire and Ice Moderators and Admin team (Bec, Mallie, Stevie, Linda, Issi, Angie, Cindy, Emily, Ange, and Christine)

I definately know how hard it is to be moderator and when you feel victimised.
Trust me guys, you're doing an excellent job

dw you guys are doing a fantastic job here

I have a few comments to make on this subject.

I tend to hear quite a bit of info along the grapevine about certain things. As a fan, I am aware fellow fans would like to know this info. I have come on here and shared this info. When I have, or when I have shared my opinion about something, I have been jumped on, patronised and spoken down to by the moderators. I have received a pm from a moderator here, who I will not name out of respect for their privacy, telling me that it's nothing personal, they just don't like me. I was then told that they would like me to stay, and yet my posts were constantly criticised. This moderator has also said that they were being childish and did insult me publicly. While I did have some respect for them admiting to that, they did not change their behaviour so the admission really holds no weight.

I was accused of calling all fangirls crazy people who don't understand personal boundaries with guests, despite specifically saying most people understand where to draw the line and thankfully those that don't are few and far between. I have been told I had no right to tell people that there was no premiere, despite getting the information direct from Hoyts Distribution, because fans should be allowed to speculate. While I thought it would be cruel to let the girls here plan to go to a premiere that did not exist, the moderators disagreed and told me to mind my own business.

Now if I was interested in just causing trouble, I could quite easily do that. I have quite a bit of information about the moderators and other key members of F&I which would not show them in a favourable light were this information to come out. I have kept this information to myself out of respect for the people involved, and I will not publicly disclose this information at any time out of continued respect for them and the fandom.

What happens now, I don't know. I admit I am expecting this post to be edited/deleted and possibly be banned myself for 'causing trouble'. And if that should happen, well it just proves my point. I do want to remain a member of this forum. While I am not a big poster, I do lurk every day and I would like to be able to share any information I receive with other people within this fandom.

I am curious to know, if someone could share, why exactly marrajane was banned. The reason she has been given is "I can read your posts on TA. Go have fun there". Just wondering what rules of this forum were breached which lead to the ban, given the comments were posted on another forum and the main point of those comments were being able to have freedom of speech. Something the moderators here keep saying they are for, and yet they seem to be selective in who has the right to freedom of speech.

Also, some comments over in the other thread re: other Twilight forums seem to have been misinterpreted -- we're not saying that we're a superior forum to the others!

Do you have a link for this?

Okay, Dana, you've certainly raised some interesting points and I'll do my best to respond to all of them that I can.

Now, to start with, I'm going to have to say this (though I'm aware it comes with the risk of offending you more): I'm sure that "When I have, or when I have shared my opinion about something, I have been jumped on, patronised and spoken down to by the moderators." is a bit of a hyperbole. Sure, I've been missing in action for long enough because of my commitments of my education that have meant I've missed a lot of your earlier experiences on the forum, which means I can't be 100% sure, but I can't fathom why the mods would attack everything you say. In the instances where we would have intervened, it's probably because something was done to upset rules, we've received e-mails and/or PMs from other members of the forum expressing that they found what was said offensive, or some other valid reason. We wouldn't just jump in somewhere for no reason. Despite what is believed about all of the mods and admin, we don't like fighting and we certainly don't like the conflict here on F&I.

In regards to your commentary about fangirls and fangirl behaviour, as we already said over in the previous conventions thread, there were a fair few of us who felt that the comments both you and MarraJane made were derogatory to "teenies", many of whom frequent our forum. It is why we asked you both to curb your language and why we fought to defend our younger members because it was seen that, essentially, it was breaking (or in danger of violating) the forum's fifth and most important rule: Be nice.

As for the Hoyts distribution messages about there not being a premiere, our point was simply to let there be hope. Not to mention, we have a tendency to deal with "insider information" about premieres, cast attendance etc with more skepticism now after being entirely too trusting in our earlier months of the forum with someone who claimed to have "information through Greater Union". If we asked you not to shoot down hope for a premiere, it was, in essence, that cynicism talking, and was never a direct attack at you, rather we felt it more prudent to wait for information which wasn't coming through a third party. Chinese whispers of information can lead to it being distorted and changed, and often lead to more detrimental consequences than positive. The mod that asked you to stop most likely had this in mind and was hoping to spare unnecessary disappointment or elation until we got 100% confirmation.

Fallen_Angel wrote:Now if I was interested in just causing trouble, I could quite easily do that. I have quite a bit of information about the moderators and other key members of F&I which would not show them in a favourable light were this information to come out. I have kept this information to myself out of respect for the people involved, and I will not publicly disclose this information at any time out of continued respect for them and the fandom.

Dana, I think you need to be aware of the serious nature of what you've just said. Whether or not you intended it to be read this way or not, that entire paragraph reads like blackmail -- that if we don't bend to your wishes, you'll spread information about our members. This is a serious threat, Dana, and one we will not take lightly. Even if you didn't intend it to, this goes back to exactly what I asked of everyone on the conventions thread before -- please, please watch your diction. This is the internet. All we see is words on a page. It's up to the reader to add emphasis and tone, and unless you make it blatantly obvious, there will be misinterpretation along the line and it can just add fuel to an already raging fire.

I'm rather sad and even hurt that you have such a low opinion of the mods and admin here, Dana. We've never actively tried to victimise anyone, ever, and all we're trying to do - as we've said so very many times before - is keep this forum running smoothly and keep as many people as possible on here happy. We're not the dictators that people are claiming us to be -- we're just fangirls, like the rest of you.

Aren't you all sick of the fighting and bickering? It's getting to a point where I'm worried about coming on here for fear of a new attack that really is making me feel victimised [and I'm sure some of the other mods feel the same way]. We're not perfect, we know. The mods and admin are only human, after all, and we never claimed to be anything but (except for that brief period during the HSC where I claimed to be a pine cone, but that really has no impact on this argument). We've all broken our fair share of rules, particularly in the early days of the forum, where Mallie had to remind us all constantly not to picspam or post irrelevantly about RPatz or Twilight, but we're trying as best we can now to stick to them and keep the forum going as it was intended to: as a place where Australian fans can hang out and chat together, as well as with our fantastic members from overseas.

So please, please, please can we stop fighting?

And as horrible as it is to say this, if you can't abide by the rules we've set down to try to keep it safe, fun and happy here -- if you truly hate us that much, then no-one's forcing you to come on here and fight with us. It'll suck to lose people we've had fun chatting, laughing and joking with, but if you can't stand it because you truly think we're evil dictators and out to steal your basic human rights, then we won't stop you leaving us. We're not going to force you to stay here (as if we could), and we'll say goodbye with a heavy heart, but it's ultimately your choice to stay or go.

Oh, and Dana? It's on page 16 of the locked conventions thread. The implication was made by jamie_123 that we believed we were better than TA because we thought TA was full of "bad behaviour". Which wasn't meant to be implied in the slightest, but rather what was meant was the fact we're a smaller forum than TA's means that F&I is, theoretically, an easier forum to moderate than the much larger TA forums.

Bec seems to have covered most of the points you have raised, I will refer to this however so that everyone is clear.

I am curious to know, if someone could share, why exactly marrajane was banned. The reason she has been given is "I can read your posts on TA. Go have fun there". Just wondering what rules of this forum were breached which lead to the ban, given the comments were posted on another forum and the main point of those comments were being able to have freedom of speech. Something the moderators here keep saying they are for, and yet they seem to be selective in who has the right to freedom of speech.

Ok firstly I would like to point out that we do not ban people lightly. now...how to say this without seeming rude....marrajane made a decision. Instead of contacting an administrator or moderator here about the problems she felt were going on she decided to go to another site and post insulting comments about the way this forum is run. Yes she technically had the right to say what she did but what she posted was creul and malicious, even if she didn't intend it to be so. Would you be happy to allow someone into your home who had openly and maliciously insulted you? Free speech is all well and good but in order to work it also needs a certain amount of respect and discretion. rule number 5 (Be Nice) would include respecting all members of this site, even though it was not on this forum she willingly broke that rule in a place where many of our members are known to frequent and would therefore see. For this reason it was decided that she should be banned from the forum.

Fallen_Angel wrote:Now if I was interested in just causing trouble, I could quite easily do that. I have quite a bit of information about the moderators and other key members of F&I which would not show them in a favourable light were this information to come out. I have kept this information to myself out of respect for the people involved, and I will not publicly disclose this information at any time out of continued respect for them and the fandom.

... are you blackmailing the mods? Because it sounds an awful lot like it. Legally, I doubt you could pass that off as a non-threatening statement, which is really unfortunate since this is supposed to be a friendly forum.

I'm not sure I've ever spoken to you before now, but why come in and say this? If you've been discriminated against to the extent that you believe, isn't this a personal issue to be taken up with the person who's wronged you?

Thanks for the reply Bec, I do appreciate you taking the time to address the points I’ve raised.

Now, to start with, I'm going to have to say this (though I'm aware it comes with the risk of offending you more): I'm sure that "When I have, or when I have shared my opinion about something, I have been jumped on, patronised and spoken down to by the moderators." is a bit of a hyperbole. Sure, I've been missing in action for long enough because of my commitments of my education that have meant I've missed a lot of your earlier experiences on the forum, which means I can't be 100% sure, but I can't fathom why the mods would attack everything you say. In the instances where we would have intervened, it's probably because something was done to upset rules, we've received e-mails and/or PMs from other members of the forum expressing that they found what was said offensive, or some other valid reason. We wouldn't just jump in somewhere for no reason. Despite what is believed about all of the mods and admin, we don't like fighting and we certainly don't like the conflict here on F&I.

The reason I have been jumped on, as explained in the PM I received from one of the moderators, is because they did not feel I was integrating myself in the forum, and I continued to post information about the Hub Productions. I would have thought being a fan they would like to know what a convention organiser had planned, but obviously I was mistaken. As far as “not integrating” I explained that a large number of the girls here are quite young and the topics of discussion to not appeal to me. I would like to stress that is not a criticism of the girl here. Everyone has different interests and different ways of thinking at different ages, so it just means I am at a different point to them. That is a big part of why I am more of a lurker than a poster here. I would be curious to know though if I have actually breached any rules in any of my posts as I have never been advised of doing so.

In regards to your commentary about fangirls and fangirl behaviour, as we already said over in the previous conventions thread, there were a fair few of us who felt that the comments both you and MarraJane made were derogatory to "teenies", many of whom frequent our forum. It is why we asked you both to curb your language and why we fought to defend our younger members because it was seen that, essentially, it was breaking (or in danger of violating) the forum's fifth and most important rule: Be nice.

I still do not understand how my post could have been misconstrued.

I'm sure most people are sensible enough to know where to draw the line with what touching is and isn't ok, but it doesn't hurt to just clarify that there is a line that can't be crossed. Apparently at one con, some girl decided it was totally ok to put her hand down the back of the guests pants Thankfully people like that are few and far between, but they do show up at cons on occasion.

Again, I have bolded where I specifically pointed out that it is not the majority of fans. I specifically said most people are sensible, and those that aren't are few and far between. So could you please enlighten me as to when I was 'derogatory'?

As for the Hoyts distribution messages about there not being a premiere, our point was simply to let there be hope. Not to mention, we have a tendency to deal with "insider information" about premieres, cast attendance etc with more skepticism now after being entirely too trusting in our earlier months of the forum with someone who claimed to have "information through Greater Union". If we asked you not to shoot down hope for a premiere, it was, in essence, that cynicism talking, and was never a direct attack at you, rather we felt it more prudent to wait for information which wasn't coming through a third party. Chinese whispers of information can lead to it being distorted and changed, and often lead to more detrimental consequences than positive. The mod that asked you to stop most likely had this in mind and was hoping to spare unnecessary disappointment or elation until we got 100% confirmation.

Everyone here was under the impression that there would definitely be a premiere. Girls were planning to go to something that was not happening. I was merely advising them of that. I never said there would not be a premiere at any point, just that at that point in time there was not one, which is the information I had been given from Hoyts Distribution who has the distributing rights to Twilight within Australia. All I did was make a phone call as a member of the general public, which anyone here was free to make, so it was never ‘insider information’. That said, I do understand scepticism of ‘insider information’. The difference however between myself and the other forum member who made claims, their claims was that things would be happening and that they could obtain certain things for people and by doing so got peoples hopes up, while I was advising that something would not be happening so people wouldn’t get their hopes up. I thought I was doing the right thing there, others don’t. We will just have to agree to disagree on the matter.

Fallen_Angel wrote:Now if I was interested in just causing trouble, I could quite easily do that. I have quite a bit of information about the moderators and other key members of F&I which would not show them in a favourable light were this information to come out. I have kept this information to myself out of respect for the people involved, and I will not publicly disclose this information at any time out of continued respect for them and the fandom.

Dana, I think you need to be aware of the serious nature of what you've just said. Whether or not you intended it to be read this way or not, that entire paragraph reads like blackmail -- that if we don't bend to your wishes, you'll spread information about our members. This is a serious threat, Dana, and one we will not take lightly. Even if you didn't intend it to, this goes back to exactly what I asked of everyone on the conventions thread before -- please, please watch your diction. This is the internet. All we see is words on a page. It's up to the reader to add emphasis and tone, and unless you make it blatantly obvious, there will be misinterpretation along the line and it can just add fuel to an already raging fire.

According to http://www.askoxford.com, Blackmail is defined as follows:

• noun 1 the demanding of money from someone in return for not revealing discreditable information.
2 the use of threats or manipulation in an attempt to influence someone’s actions.

As you can see be the definition, I did not blackmail anyone. I did not ask for money, or anything else for that matter, with the threat of making information public. In fact, I made a point of not only saying I haven’t made the information public, but also that I would never make the information public. As far as wanting the moderators her to bend to my wishes, what wishes are they exactly? I don’t recall actually asking for anything. If you choose to interpret my post in that way, then that is your prerogative. I was merely backing up my statement that I was not trying to cause trouble, because if I wanted to cause trouble, I could. I do agree blackmail is a serious matter and it is illegal, so if you have any concerns about being ‘blackmailed’, then by all means, take the matter further. In fact, I would encourage you to seek legal advice on the matter if you feel that I am indeed blackmailing anyone. Also, you should be aware of the claims you make against people, as slander is also a very serious matter.

Aren't you all sick of the fighting and bickering? It's getting to a point where I'm worried about coming on here for fear of a new attack that really is making me feel victimised [and I'm sure some of the other mods feel the same way]. We're not perfect, we know. The mods and admin are only human, after all, and we never claimed to be anything but (except for that brief period during the HSC where I claimed to be a pine cone, but that really has no impact on this argument). We've all broken our fair share of rules, particularly in the early days of the forum, where Mallie had to remind us all constantly not to picspam or post irrelevantly about RPatz or Twilight, but we're trying as best we can now to stick to them and keep the forum going as it was intended to: as a place where Australian fans can hang out and chat together, as well as with our fantastic members from overseas.

I joined here because I enjoy being part of a fandom. I am an active member of another online fan community, and I missed out on the ‘beginnings’ of that fandom, so being here and being able to post prior to the movie coming out was a pretty cool thing. I am sick of the fighting, which is why I have not posted a number of things that I would have liked to post. There have been some things that I’m sure mos people here would have liked to know, however when my posts are, more often than not, shot down by the moderators here it does not make me feel welcome and does not make me want to post information here.

And as horrible as it is to say this, if you can't abide by the rules we've set down to try to keep it safe, fun and happy here -- if you truly hate us that much, then no-one's forcing you to come on here and fight with us. It'll suck to lose people we've had fun chatting, laughing and joking with, but if you can't stand it because you truly think we're evil dictators and out to steal your basic human rights, then we won't stop you leaving us. We're not going to force you to stay here (as if we could), and we'll say goodbye with a heavy heart, but it's ultimately your choice to stay or go.

Again, could you please outline what rules I have broken as I have not been advised which rules are being broken. I have even asked a moderator to advise me how I could post differently to avoid any trouble. I was told to post 'nicer'. I asked how exactly can post 'nicer' and I am still waiting to be told. So I have made an effort to do the right thing but I can only do so much. I don’t recall ever saying I hated anyone here. Why would I? I have far more important things happening in my life, both good and bad, to hate some faceless names on the internet. When I was told in a PM by a moderator here that something about me gets under their skin and it's gotten to the point where she wants to strangle me. I will say again now exactly what I said to her then. I don't actually have an issue, personally, with her or any other mod here. This whole thing, water under the bridge to me. I was then, and still am, a little confused as to where all the hostility came from but I honestly don't hold any negative feelings. I am not one for holding grudges, particularly with people who for all intensive persons are an anonymous persona oline. I don’t recall ever saying anyone here was an evil dictator, and out to steal my basic human rights. I also stated in my previous post that I don’t want to leave, so it’s ok. Your hearts can be lightened

Oh, and Dana? It's on page 16 of the locked conventions thread. The implication was made by jamie_123 that we believed we were better than TA because we thought TA was full of "bad behaviour". Which wasn't meant to be implied in the slightest, but rather what was meant was the fact we're a smaller forum than TA's means that F&I is, theoretically, an easier forum to moderate than the much larger TA forums.

Great, thanks for that Bec. I wasn’t too sure where anything was said as I hadn’t actually had the chance to read that

ok i seem to be missing alot of whats going on on this forum latley as reading this is the first i've heard of any problems (although i will admitt that lately i have rarely ventured out of the 'everything else' section) but i woud like to say that i have NEVER had any problems with any of the mods. i enjoy spending my free time here and i feel that the mods here do an exelent job.

while i beleive that everyone has a right to have their own opinion, i also beleive that if you don't have something nice to say don't say it or just because you have an opinion it dosn't mean you have to express it. I AM NOT saying that anyone has said anything nasty or derogetory that i know of. i am mearly saying that (from what ive read) diferences of opinion and people saying thing that are not 'nice' seem to be the problem here. i dont have a problem with people expressing a different opinion to my own as long as they do it in a nice way. we even have threads devoted to having different opinions on this fourm, the edward cullen thread, the jake black thread, the bella stewart thread... etc. and on these threds differences of opinion are expressed in a friendly way. this should be the same for any opinion on any topic.

before i finnish i will state again that i think all the mods are doing a great job. love you all

**i would like to apologise for any spelling errors in this post**

Hey I completly agree with bookworm (that was not meant as an insult I just didn't want to spell ur whole name out) if people have a problem then just leave u can probobly find someother place were u will find people who think like u and then u will be hapier there