The eHam SDR Forum Troll-Fest – How Moderator Failure Leads to a Useless Forum

A recent visit to the eHam SDR Forum again confirms that eHam is effectively being run by trolls. The moderators are at best AWOL, and often defend the open trolling. What a failure.

I’ve written about the eHam Moderator Failure for years:

2013 – EHAM SHOULD BE ASHAMED HAVING BECOME THE SDR TROLL-FEST OF AMATEUR RADIO – Link

2011 – WHY I SKIP THE EHAM FORUMS – Link

2008 – EHAM – HAM COMMUNITY CROSS SECTION OR HAM HOBO-LAND? – Link

With a seven year effort to ask the Moderators at eHam to clean up their mess to no response, and even having these faux-moderators take me to task for complaining, it is crystal clear – eHam likes & supports Trolls.

eHam Troll Fest in Action

Suppose in the eHam rational anything that increases page views – aka “hits” chargeable to advertisers – is a good thing.

Or perhaps the Trolls are nothing more than pseudonyms of the eHam Moderators?

Nothing else seems to make sense.

Regardless of the eHam rational, they are failing the amateur radio community by allowing their pet pack of Trolls to run off anyone who doesn’t agree with their non-user ultra-negative falsehoods-based Trolling.

This makes the Moderators “Assistant Trolls” if not actually qualifying them as Trolls themselves, and shame on them.

To so many of us who actually spend some coin enjoying this hobby eHam has lost relevance because of their Troll-Enablement moderation. I guess that is why I look at eHam but once in a great while, and usually leave disappointed.

A word to the advertisers at eHam, while I do buy your products I will never click on a eHam ad. This is my quiet simple protest of the foulness eHam supports.  No advertisers will earn my dollars through an eHam ad, ever.

73

Steve
K9ZW

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eHam Should be Ashamed Having Become the SDR Troll-Fest of Amateur Radio

Anyone have any idea why eHam allows open forum posting by renown Trolls?

The eHam SDR Forum   http://www.eham.net/ehamforum/smf/index.php/board,28.0.html has been taken over by a group of very negative Trolls

My repeated emails to eHam requesting action, reporting of their posts to eHam’s moderators, and the wider discussions about the problem in the radio amateur community have resulted in little action.

Actually less than little action, as apparently eHam has taken cue from the political world and chastises the ham who complains about their Trolls.

With a major new radio on the cusp  of shipping the eHam SDR Trolls are having a festival.  They do not own the radio they are blasting, openly state they have no intention of buying the radio, have never seen the radio, and yet are self proclaimed naysayers of the most vile Troll fashion.

Lambasting anyone who likes their radio with name calling, accusing the manufacturer of every vile trait they can make up, all based on some unhappy moment years ago with a different product.

The fact that they acted a the “customer from hell” every chance they got somehow never factors in.

The worse recent thread is Much Flex-6000 News where leader of the Troll Pack makes his usual attacks.

As eHam’s response to most Troll complaints is to trim the whole thread, rather than actually moderating, you might want to grab a screen shot if you want to read an think about the eHam trolls.

It is time for Amateur Radio to move beyond the eHam model, so perhaps eHam’s hands off approach will help hasten the development of a decent alternative.

I know a number of manufacturers have said they would not advertise on eHam due to the eHam Troll Problems.

What thinks you?

73

Steve
K9ZW

A Story Well Written: A Dark and Stormy Night by Don N4KC

A Dark and Stormy Night

By Don Keith N4KC

© 2012 by Don Keith

A deep-throated rumble of distant thunder rattled the two cans of soda pop that rested on the metal patio table. The two people sitting there on the dark, screened-in porch hardly noticed. The rain had let up noticeably and now they could hear the droplets tinkling metallically as they hit the bottom of the nearby downspout. The tree frogs sang happy songs of damp contentment from the far end of the backyard and a cool breeze felt especially refreshing in the wake of the late-afternoon heat prior to the thunderstorm.

“Sorry, Jack,” one of them said to the other as he reached for his drink. “I could fire up the generator and we could get to work but I suspect the power will be back on shortly anyway. Probably just a transformer tried to gargle some rainwater.”

“Aw, don’t worry about it, Mr. Nielsen,” the other person said, his voice much younger, obviously still in the process of changing from kid’s to man’s. “If we don’t get it fixed tonight, we still have a few days before my ham license shows up in the database and I’m legal.”

“You may as well start calling me ‘Tom.’ That’s what we hams do, you know, regardless our relative ages. First names and call signs. That’s the way we know each other.” Tom Nielsen took a sip of the fizzy drink. “I think we can get that radio fixed up pretty quickly anyway. They had a problem with the PLL losing synch on some bands as it aged and got knocked around and it’s usually just a matter of tweaking.” …… continues at the link….

Read the whole story at eHam – Link:   A Dark and Stormy Night.

Enjoy – Don N4KC corresponds now and then, and one does really enjoy his stories!

37

Steve

K9ZW

Why I skip the eHam forums

Recently I made a big mistake. I took a half hour to browse through some of the eHam forums.

Finding any nuggets of useful information was difficult as the signal-to-noise level is very heavy on the noise – actually on bad unexcusable undermoderated noise.

In any discussion there are always differing theories, opinions, view of what is fact/not-fact, and preferences. We all bring our personal bias to what we involve ourselves with.

I bring my bias to prefer to discuss facts, and work to a solution to whatever question is at hand – without the need to “prove I am right.”

That need to “be right” is something that we all have, and we’re all better when it isn’t the main reason for our participation in a discussion.

Kept in check it does encourage us to be accurate, fact-check our information, avoid gamesmanship & logical fallacies, and to work to a mutual cooperation hoping the others involved will at least understand our position and views.

Kept in check we can agree to disagree, and learn to share even diametrically opposed views in a “safe way” that lets us remain friends with those we may disagree with.

I was shocked to see little of that ideal in play at the eHam Forums. As a decades seasoned Moderator of forums (do you too remember FidoNet?) I learned that carefully word-crafted Troll Messages still spoil the soup, and a number of openly Troll eHam members were being allowed to run rampant in at least half of the threads I read.

Gallant attempts at fair-minded responses were being met not with a discovery of facts and discussion, but with open name calling and the worst undermining of a forum, the blatant use of Logical Fallacies to cloak the games – not discussions – that are going on.

Perhaps in the end the number of Clicks and Hits is really King, especially when a website needs the advertising revenue to survive.

That does seem to be part of the eHam game.

In discussing what a read with a few others, a positive side did come out – at least the Ham Radio Trolls have their own playground to play in, and hopefully stay away from the rest of the folk.

I should point out that Amateur Radio is not unique for Net Trolls. I have encountered them from the start of the old FidoNet BBS systems and they have always been there.

What is unique about the eHam mess is that usually requiring real names (or requiring call signs) puts a stop to 90% plus of the games.

eHam has attracted Trolls with no self pride who seem to think that we don’t see through their games and see them as wanting.

In this post I’m not putting links, as I haven’t taken time to do the good deed to individually contact the my fellow amateurs to tell them that they are coming over as trolls, nor have I taken the time to complain to the Moderators having found the product reviews enough of a mess that my energy to help eHam has already been spent in that effort.

Rather I publically issue a “Golden Rule” challenge to those involved to moderate those who are leaning towards or who have become Trolls, remove non-factual messages, remove name-calling and ban those Trolls, and actively encourage first hand factual based posting.

I’m hoping they are up to that challenge,

73

Steve
K9ZW

Making Money the “Emcomm Way” – Commercial Profit Motives

It’s been happening right along – Making Money the “Emcomm Way” – but more and more we are seeing a Commercial Profit Motive take over the Emcomm product selection process.

Historically one of the early paid-for Emcomm tools was PACTOR, though this was really a case of Emcomm adopting a commercial product. The higher speed versions and the real factory modems are expensive licensed products.

ARRL CCE Emcomm Courses were one of the next commercial Emcomm products. These were a pay as you go series of classes, though the full cost was masked by grants as only a smaller percentage of students directly paid the fees. Most of us had our fees refunded from grant money once we completed the classes. Now these courses falling behind as the grants have tailed off.

A recent eHam “Article” (actually a CSS Press Release – or Advertisement should we say…..) announces a $30 reduced ability software package version of CSS’s $100 “Emcomm Solution.”  This again brought home the reminder that Emcomm is a business for many.

The ARRL is back in the Emcomm commercial business with their latest training courses and materials.  The new Digital for Emcomm $50 CD is an example of their range of Emcomm products.

Should Emcomm be a business? One cannot expect commercial organizations to provide products gratis, but what about our national dues supported organization, should those products be at cost to membership?

Your thoughts?

73

Steve
K9ZW

eHam – Ham Community Cross Section or Ham Hobo-Land?

Has eHam become the Ham Community with the cross section of writers, reviewers, forum participants and readers originally envisioned, or has it become too much of a Wasteland of the ultra-biased, the negative, the ham internet trolls, and the self-important?

When posing this question to a group of very well published Radio Amateurs I was surprised to receive back comments like:

I could write a fifty-page blog entry about the foolishness of the people who run eHam. I had a run-in with them several years back over their unauthorized posting of some of my copyrighted material and it got ugly very fast.

I read the note from Bernie this morning on the Daily DX list and could see this turning stupid. I don’t know if Bernie advertises with eHam and if that would have made a difference? Wayne and Eric have “spammed” the Elecraft list from time to time soliciting eHam reviews and I’ve yet to hear of that being a problem — but of course Elecraft does (or did) advertise on eHam.

I remember well when XXXXXX (who was indeed a pain in the butt) had a run in with one of the “editors” on eHam a few years back. They edited his profile to say he was a “pain in the ass” and then locked him out from being able to edit his own profile… a childish and petty act by any measure.

The equipment reviews are the only thing worth a nickel on eHam and even those require much data mining. Too often I’ve seen reviews there that start out, “I don’t own this equipment, but my friend does and he said it sucks” with the requisite ZERO score given. How silly that anyone trusts these reviews and that process…

Sorry for the long retort but it touched a nerve. I despise eHam and the horse it rode in on…just to be clear. I look forward to the day when high-quality ham blogs put it out of business for good.

I have abandoned eHam.

I would try to participate in a meaningful discussion and would be met with the worst kind of ad hominem attacks, reply posts about farting, and worse.

It came down to this: would I recommend that a new ham, anxious to learn about the hobby and its participants, go to eHam to read and get questions answered?

No.

Emphatically no.

 

Not quite the two-sides to the story sorts of comments I expected, but first hand complaints of the eHam problems.

So which is eHam?  A Ham Community Cross Section or Ham Hobo-Land?

The answer appears to be in the middle of the two extremes this piece’s title suggests.

The underlying issue that their can be no effective level & equal quality control in an unmoderated forum/venue/website seriously undermines the eHam model.

It is worth remembering that eHam basically costs nothing to read, costs very little to subscribe to, and like free publications everywhere it should be taken with a grain of salt.

eHam has a serious problem working things out to balance the negative and troll posters.  Personally I have been lambasted by self-appointed forum guardians who do eHam no good whatsoever.

This also means that until an amateur is experienced enough to be able to wade through this unfiltered mess of webpostings, that eHam is a pretty screen but not much more.

 

73

Steve
K9ZW