Moderator problem: Banning programs from posting fellowships

[DermMatch]

Hi -- I just wanted to bring to our community's attention the fact that StanfordDerm was banned for supposedly spamming our forum. I assume it's because they advertised their fellowship post -- see below.

" Yesterday, 05:42 PM #859
StanfordDerm
Banned Spammer

Status: Attending
Join Date: Dec 2009
Posts: 4
Blog Entries: 1

Dermatology Clinical Research Position Available
Part-time clinical research associate position available at Stanford Univ. School of Medicine (CA) Dept. of Dermatology for a large clinical study of human skin aging.

Excellent opportunity for pre-medical student to gain experience with clinical studies. Must have great interpersonal skills, be a team player and be flexible.

Please email Anne Chang, MD at [email protected]. If you can include CV and college transcript, would be a plus."

This just goes to show that we really need a DERM mod for this forum. SDN's derm forum is THE place that derm applicants go to for info like the fellowship posts programs put up. These should NOT be considered spam; they are integral to the function of our site.

I'm hoping that the SDN mods will un-ban StanfordDerm so that they can continue to let applicants know about their job opportunities. They probably didn't understand that we derm folks rely on programs to announce their fellowships or other similar positions through SDN, especially with the demise of the (truly spam-ridden) dermboard.

Without their participation, we will not know about the research and fellowship programs out there for reapplicants and future applicants.

I'm going to PM yaah and Lee to let them know about this problem.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[DermViser]

DermMatch,

Personally, I think you should have been given administrator privileges at The DermBoard Yuku. Instead of locking it, it should have just been handed down to you. UrologyMatch continues to use it (http://urologymatch.yuku.com/), and I don't see why we can't either. They even now have the ability to post anonymously on Yuku (which wasn't there before): http://www.urologymatch.com/?q=NODE/543, for those who are paranoid on their anonymity but still want to relay info.

Erin Long started it back in 2000-2001, after a few years then it was passed on to Valerie Goldburt, and the website was doing fine for a few years before it changed to the Yuku format (after 2005/6?) and then a cyber-squatter snapped up the domain name, and Register.com let him buy the domain (nixing all the working links that were already there including the match list and the guide - which no one could access) and he wouldn't give it back, and no one knew how to redirect the pages to a different domain (since the Dermboard has always been volunteer-run, after which the fallout to where it switched over to SDN, and then they were able to finally get the domain back for DermYuku. Now that Valerie, has finished her dermatology residency and moved on to bigger and better things (or at least better than having to run a dermatology residency match discussion group), I would have thought naturally it would be given to you, esp. with your altruistic help on the match list as well as making the guide.

All the SDN forums are governed by the TOS: http://www.studentdoctor.net/sdn-forums-terms-of-service/

According to the TOS, "Don't cross-post on the forums. Just post once. Posting a question or comment in multiple forums is annoying to other guests." I'm not sure but I think the TOS are even above control of the moderators of the individual forums. This is of course a problem here, when Dr. Chang from Stanford was trying to list a posting for a research fellowship experience esp. since her post would fit in several forums: Dermatology, Pre-Allopathic (as I think she wanted a premed student), etc. Hence I think bc she was tagged as "cross posting", her account was banned (silly, I agree). Bc when you make an account on SDN, they don't know which forum you'll be using, my guess is they have to keep the rule in place for those people that get over enthusiastic and post in multiple forums unnecessarily. Obviously this makes it more difficult on the Dermatology forum where reapplicants and applicants would benefit to see research and fellowship opportunities.

 

[sore eye asses]

Hi -- I just wanted to bring to our community's attention the fact that StanfordDerm was banned for supposedly spamming our forum. I assume it's because they advertised their fellowship post -- see below.

" Yesterday, 05:42 PM #859
StanfordDerm
Banned Spammer

Status: Attending
Join Date: Dec 2009
Posts: 4
Blog Entries: 1

Dermatology Clinical Research Position Available
Part-time clinical research associate position available at Stanford Univ. School of Medicine (CA) Dept. of Dermatology for a large clinical study of human skin aging.

Excellent opportunity for pre-medical student to gain experience with clinical studies. Must have great interpersonal skills, be a team player and be flexible.

Please email Anne Chang, MD at [email protected]. If you can include CV and college transcript, would be a plus."

This just goes to show that we really need a DERM mod for this forum. SDN's derm forum is THE place that derm applicants go to for info like the fellowship posts programs put up. These should NOT be considered spam; they are integral to the function of our site.

I'm hoping that the SDN mods will un-ban StanfordDerm so that they can continue to let applicants know about their job opportunities. They probably didn't understand that we derm folks rely on programs to announce their fellowships or other similar positions through SDN, especially with the demise of the (truly spam-ridden) dermboard.

Without their participation, we will not know about the research and fellowship programs out there for reapplicants and future applicants.

I'm going to PM yaah and Lee to let them know about this problem.

Like I said, we need a moderator moderator.

 

[yaah]

SDN does not allow spam advertising. This person registered and posted this advertisement several times, including in forums other than the derm forum. This is basically the definition of spam advertising on internet forums. It may be a fine line but the line has to be drawn somewhere. Some of you may find this extreme or silly but this is how the forums need to be run to keep things as smooth as possible and keep as many users as possible happy. There are some users who want to see lots of ads, but many others do not. Isolated advertisements like this one almost never result in banning, and are usually moved to the "open positions" forum which is intended for this purpose. We are discussing the issue of adding a moderator (or more than one) to this forum and should have action soon.

If the issue of open positions becomes an issue critical for this forum, there are other options we can take.

 

[DermMatch]

Thanks, yaah, for the explanation. I've been in PM contact with yaah, Lee (SDN founder), asmallchild, and N-Surge about this misunderstanding. The multiple posts may have also triggered an auto-ban leading to this outcome.

SDN is being super-responsive. Some of the ideas raised is to create a subforum just for job opportunities, research positions, and fellowships, like they use over at the anesthesiology/pain management forum. We definitely welcome more ideas. Feel free to post them in this thread for maximum feedback, or PM folks. yaah's been actively involved in helping our derm forum, as well as N-Surge and asmallchild.

As for the late yuku dermboard, there were many other problems with it that folks have raised before, both publicly and privately. I'd rather just leave it as it is now -- defunct.

Thanks for the vote of confidence in my contribution to our nonprofit SDN derm forum. I love helping out as a derm app guidance counselor, if you will, and don't see moderating as fitting that role. N-Surge and asmallchild both would be fantastic in that job!