Banning Vs. Valuemd?

[hi]

Valuemd's advertisement is based on the number of registered users and visitors (basic business). So, banning a user is not good for valuemd but i don't think it will have a great impact. At studentdoctor.net, you can say anything you want and bad mouth a school as much as you want, as long as you do not offend other users. Unfortunately at valuemd.com, moderators seem more like school administrators who are trying to lure prospective students. Hence, bad posts/threads about a specific school will create a conflict in the minds of prospective schools. So, these moderators-administrators take immediate actions by warning/banning the "culprit". I personally disagree with that as prospective should have all kinds of viewpoints before making a final decision.
Forum moderators like Ross and Spartan are lenient as you can read negative things about the schools. Forum moderators like St.chris and AUC are very harsh as you can hardly see any negative thing about the school.

******To prospective schools, make sure you know BOTH negative and positive things about the school. Make sure the positive things outweigh the negative things. Never apply to a medical school that has a solid history (no negative) because it is a money scam waiting to happen


Nasir,
Dude, I don’t think you should be banned. If mitchdoc bans you, it is a wrong decision and it will further proof my analogy of moderators being school administrators. If you are banned and still feel the need to participate in these forums, set up a fake email and use a different computer. Nevertheless, good luck and don’t give up becoming a doctor.


Valuemd Administrator:
-I think if you adopt the procedures for banning/warning users as that of studentdoctor.net, you will be in a better position. I bet you are making a lot of money through those advertisements. Don’t ban more than 1 user a month. I have told a couple of friends about this website. I may reconsider my word of mouth “advertisement” if these unfair banning continue. Nice website!!!!!!!!.


Gottta go grap some beer.

[Fear]

listen hi, your suggestions are in good spirit, but in order to creat a professional environment things must be regulated, and people who don't follow certain guidelines create havoc. im doubt that valuemd wants to ban anyone, but it makes sense to ban one user that is out of line (and has been warned to reevalute their ways) and retain the rest of us users so that we don't have to put up with ridiculous posts and ridiculous users (you know who are).

[bts4202]

Hey Hi,

I have seen MANY MANY more people banned on SDN than on ValueMD. Also, on SDN there are trolls that just like to start trouble and talk smack. That is not the case here. SO I respecfully disagree with you.

[tekky]

I would like to start off by saying I would have banned Nasir and I am not even a student yet, so there goes your Ross goon theory.

As an American I believe in free speech as well, but I do not believe in prolonged personal harassments or spam of any sort. Most users would actually LIKE to see factual negative posts, because it can help them avoid potential pitfalls. If you follow ALL the Nasir-related posts, you will see Nasir was given MANY public warnings (in addition to alleged private warnings) to curve his METHOD of information delivery.

On another note, it is pretty obvious this guy is having mental issues. Lets do the right thing and not egg him on.

As for the "bad business decision" for valuemd to ban Nasir because he is a number that can be added to the sum total of registered users? Well... I really don't know what to tell you other than don't start a business.

[Cuando2]

All i must say is that this forum was setup for prospects and students of mainly Ross (does NOT mean that others are NOT welcome). However, this forum was not setup for some high school kid with nothing better to do bored at home who detracts the attention of Ross prospects/students to the primary topics of this board by posing as a prospect with serious issues and trying to portray an imaginery story of Ross being some sort of mafia-backed/mafia-style medical school. The idea sounds somewhat cool, but save it for the movies. The previous forums were a mess, and I think this new interface was setup to curb the numerous trolls that turned Ross discussion into a madhouse. They dont want that to happen again, for obvious reasons...they want to foster functionality rather than a complete mess. This guy has obviously distracted the real purpose of this forum...rather than having threads up at the top of the list regarding "food in Dominica" and/or "How does the MPS work?" and other such types of questions/topics, there are topics up there such as "Ross violated international nuclear policies" and other such **. I'm glad this whole situation with a particular troll is almost over...and please, let the mods do whatever they must do.

[Doc]

Hi:

I agree that users should be given the opportunity to express themselves. However, they must do this within our guidelines (no personal insults/threats/attacks, vulgar language, spam, racial/religous slurs, etc). Nassir has had the opportunity to post over the past 6 weeks or so with over 85 posts, but only a fraction of the posts have violated our policies. These are the posts which we have asked Nasir to edit. To date he has refused. He would like you to believe that it is because of his message, but in this rare instance, the public was able to view a portion of the public warnings themselves and can draw their own conclusions. This was clearly explained to Nasir on several occassions including public posts located at http://www.valuemd.com/viewtopic.php?t=4122 and http://www.valuemd.com/viewtopic.php?p=17864 .

MitchDC has been quite objective regarding this case. In fact, he may have been overly lenient in order to prevent people from coming to the very conclusion which you are suggesting. According to our guidelines, because Nasir has broken our policies and refused to fix his posts, he has been eligible for a ban for some time. The vote for ban has been passed (requires a panel of Moderators), so he is banned. But to prove to Nasir that it has nothing to do with the messages themselves, we will allow him/her to post until the end of Saturday (the day which s/he claims to deliver the "evidence" to the ValueMD viewers). In addition, his previous messages will stand unaltered (except the vulgar words which have been automatically changed by our word censors). However, he will not be permitted to post from Sunday forward because, even though s/he agreed to follow our rules upon registration, Nasir has failed to acknowledge these rules or the willingness to abide by them. Nasir's messages have never been an issue, only the way in which s/he chose to present some of them, as was the case of the only 2 other users (using 6 usernames) which have ever been banned from ValueMD. That's about 3 of 3500 or .086%. (+ 1 straight up free ad spammer)

Regarding the # of users and advertisements, we are not in this for the money (notice the large decrease in the number of advertisers which we allow to advertise). Those advertisements pay for your free membership here as well as donations to charitable causes and other expenses. We work closely with excellent sites like SDN (and we do already have similar Moderator policies) to bring these services free to the public. No we do not want to ban anyone, but it has nothing to do with advertisement. If a user is not willing to follow our policies (regardless of the messages themselves), we are sometimes left with no other choice.

I hope this better explains ValueMD's position, but I'd be happy to try to further answer any remaining questions which you might have. Thanks for your time and enjoy the site.

[jim]

as cuando stated, these forums are accessible by all who have a computer. as such, you never really know who you are hearing from. these forums were set up to help prospects about there trips to dominica. i remember my first trip down, thinking"what the heck is going on there, where will I go? "etc, etc. there were no where near as many pages at that time, and my computer skills where drastiucally weaker, for me to get this info on the net. i basically went down there blind. but it wasnt bad, and i had no troubles getting through in 10 semesters and am now an intern. I owe this to Ross. my friends all made it through without problmes also, with only a couple of exceptions. But there is something i must say. basing your decision on going to a school on a forum on the internet is idiodic. you are truelly a fool if you use this page for anything more then finding out how many pairs of underwear you need, or where to get a good slice of pizza, or other such examples. like i stated before, remember, any idiot witha computer can be here. nasir says he went to Ross. I believe him. I also believe he has made it quite obvious why he was booted from ross, and deservedly so. but in the end, you never really knwo who is posting. it could very well be a bored 11 year old, havinga good old time "messing with the med students" so to speak. before you make a decision on going to an offshore school, you need to research it fully. more so then a school in the states. you need to check licensure in every state, not just where you want to live. thinsg change drastically in 4 years, and as an example, i am now happily in a state that i never thought i would want to live in. you also want to check to see if the school has lost funding in the recent past from the dept of education. you also want to find graduates, who are working physicians. not just one or two, but lots! and it may sound expensive, but really, you need to go and see where you will be spending the next few years of your life. honestly, i went down without any of this knowledge. just got lucky i guess. because now i knwo this info, and realise i would still have made the same choice. when you look at ths cost of med school, it really isnt that expensive to go island hopping and check a few of the schools out in one long trip. the one step of your research should NOT be this, or similar webpages. this is where to look after you knwo where you are going, and need to knwo about how bad the headaches are from kubuli beer, and how good of an umbrella to bring, and other such things. hope my little diatribe here helps. good luck to all.

[vadimk]

I believe in freedom of speech but when you read some of his post, you'd see that something isn't right, no offence but he does seem to have some issues to deal with. Banning him might have been the best option at the time so that he can make use of the time he spends on the internet to check himself and to also ask himself if MD is really for him.

[Fear]

not to mention he was a distraction for everyone.

[Ross]

Amen, jim!!