CJS wrote:It's a tragic event and my thoughts go to all involved, but speculation? Oh there was plenty of that again.
Just dealing with the "speculation" point insofar as those of us with red/orange usernames are concerned, I'll try to put the grey area into black and white to see how difficult it is to straddle the line of what's important/newsworthy, and taste/appropriateness:
TL;DR - I think this thread to be fine, but these situations can be very hard to deal with and incredibly complex, and there's seldom right or wrong. Also, "it's reported that" is not "speculation".
Since Shoreham (though, actually we first started chatting about how we deal with this kind of stuff after Kev Whyman tragically lost his life a few weeks prior) "speculation" is becoming a bit of a buzzword.
The fundamental principle is that this is a forum for people to share and, much more importantly, discuss, news relating to airshows, aviation, etc. In one sense, it's exactly the same as Facebook and Twitter on a considerably smaller scale, in that this place is entirely what its members make of it (which is why it's silly for the "UKAR*se" (* to avoid the swear filter) forum to be judged as a whole as it frequently is, because of some views which are expressed by a couple of members. Much like if we were to deride the entirety of Twitter because of the minority of really disgusting trolls on there).
Battening down the hatches and censoring all ability to share news and discuss it following an incident is a practice I, and probably all of the other staffers, want zero part in. But, at the same time, Twitter and Facebook, being very much unmoderated for these purposes, is a rife breeding ground for the spread of false and misleading information, regardless of whether the originator of the information has good intentions or not. It always seems to me these things start because someone posts "from a mate there who says XYZ", and then that's shared across groups and communities, and before long it becomes "it's being reported as", and no-one has a clue where it comes from. Perhaps it's an outdated term describing what a reporter used to report, to now describe any T,D, or H saying something completely unvetted, and of dubious reliability.
We've seen the damage done on social media by accounts setting themselves up as reputable seeing red and making a full-on charge about a story that doesn't exist. I think a few years ago one particularly well-followed (and quite good) account spread news of a Tornado crash at RAF Marham, based on information given by someone on the fence, but what they didn't realise was that it was a practice emergency drill. Honest mistake, but the importance of awaiting official statements & confirmations is paramount. I think part of this is also the rush to be "first", too, which means that hunches might not be checked as robustly as they should have been. If you're "first" with the news, you get all the retweets, likes, shares, etc. that's fine for exotic airshow participation, but imo it crosses a line when it's about life threatening situations.
UKAR's Twitter was deliberately not drawn into an "it's been reported" line over this and other issues. We decided that the most value we could achieve, and most appropriate we could be, was to wait until the MoD, or some other official account released a quick statement, and simply share that. No-one from the enthusiast community needs to know of the urgency where we can't wait a few hours for an official statement.
I know This is Flight did a rolling broadcast and several "BREAKING" tweets, and that's ok, and a matter for them to decide how to play it. I did ask myself whether we really *needed* that kind of coverage, when we always know that the MoD, the RAF or some other official level of the armed forces will issue a statement within a few hours (as they did). I'm not saying UKAR's route was better, nor worse, nor am I attempting to single TIF out (before Alex jumps on me ), but the above highlights that these things are complex, and many people handle them in very different ways.
So, on the face of it, there's the balance. We've got to allow the sharing of news whilst it's newsworthy, whilst attempting to steer clear of the mess of rumour & false information. Added to this mix is that these incidents develop very quickly, and it's very difficult for any of us to be on "standby" ready to jump on anything untoward. This is because, even if we were here 24/7, how do we know that something posted is untrue? The truth takes time. By the time we've worked something out, the situation has developed.
None of this is actually real "speculation" because I haven't got there yet. It's Chinese whispers.
From a moderating point of view, I and the rest of the team can do nothing to control who says what on Facebook, or Twitter, or other social media sites, forums, or websites. That's not our mandate, and that's not our responsibility.
It's incredibly difficult to make a judgement call on "it's being reported", because we have no way of determining that information. But taken in a loose definition, all "it's being reported" means is "someone is saying". Fine. We can deal with that, and only the most craven of idiots should take anything "someone is saying" as the unequivocal truth. What we *can* do is stop speculation when it appears here. That's direct "I think" kind of comments, not "it's reported as". Comments such as "from the footage online it looks like X, Y, & Z happened" have zero, often negative, value. Comments from people claiming they were at the scene and describing what they saw are probably more reliable, but this is probably the wrong place for them, so they would likely be encouraged to contact the relevant authority/body/organisation and describe what they saw.
But there is zero one size fits all, because these occasions are almost never the same, it's all entirely contextual, and decisions will be based on that, and what/how people post. If our policies were too rigid, we would be unable to adapt, too loose and we end up with rife speculation and little truth. So us staffers have to bear all of this in mind, and do what we can according to our judgement. We'll often discuss some of the more borderline posts with others to make sure whatever decision we take is justified, and that's how we have to run with it.
That's why we've operated an evolutionary approach to dealing with accidents, crashes, incidents, or whatever. And I consider it to be very much our duty to guard against that. But I'd hang up my red spurs in a heartbeat if our policy evolved to stopping all news and discussion every time there was a suspected accident.
Add to all of this is that these occasions can frequently end up tragically, as this one did, and so we also have to consider the bounds of taste, mood, likelihood of gutter press sniffing around, and our own emotions. As a moderator, it's horrid having to deal with something like this, but deal with it we must.
In this thread? I don't think there was any untoward speculation. No-one has said "I reckon", which is what speculation is. False news was put here from elsewhere, but that has been corrected by official accounts, but that's not speculation. So, hopefully, that gives an insight into something with on the face of it people are quick to say "astonishing the poor speculation going on here", that is actually, just from a volunteer modding pov is vastly complex.
Apologies for another essay. If I had had more time I would've written less, etc...