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ESL forum > Concerning worksheets > Thank you, moderators! You ´re doing a great job!    

Thank you, moderators! You ´re doing a great job!



zailda
Brazil

Thank you, moderators! You ´re doing a great job!
 
I want to thank the moderators who spend lots of their time trying to keep the site clean but every day there are tons of wss reported for the same reasons: copied, scanned, not esl resource.

The rules appear clearly and written in plain English before I upload every single ws. Do they appear for everyone or just for me? If they appear, there �s no excuse for uploading material that will be reported and delected and that will make moderators spend the time they could be using in the preparation of the wonderful wss this site is known for.

I only report blank ws because I have to admit I don �t have time or patience to dig through other sites and wss looking for the previous place where the ws was taken from. And when I have (very little) time left before signing out, I go to the reported page to see the same soap opera that keeps repeating day after day.

It started getting to me so I rarely go there because every time I do, it upsets me. I get really angry when I see so many colleagues that are teachers like me acting so unfairly, trying to get lots of points with little work. Isn �t it laziness? It �s not a teacher �s characteristic, I hope. And I also hope this kind of behavior is not a taste of their character.

Since we are all English teachers - at least I think so - everyone is able to understand the plain English in which the rules are written so try to act honestly and don �t fill the reported page with material that is not to be here.

Let �s preserve the site and make it better each day. It will be the best for everyone. Getting points is not the point here.

Thanks to all of you who provide excellent wss every day and I hope one day I �ll be one of you.

Zailda

25 May 2009      





Damielle
Argentina

I agree with you, zaila. It �s very sad to see so many teachers trying to cheat all the time. It reminds me formers fights in the forum between those who were trying to cheat and those who were defending ESLprintables. the later were absolutely right: there were too many people cheating to get points!!!!

25 May 2009     



borna
Croatia

I agree with you, but I think it is not easy for new members to get 30 points immediately, and they may feel anxious to download the worksheets ot powerpoints they need desperately in class. Maybe we can minimize this by supporting the new members in a way to send them our wss and ppts by e-mail? If the purpose of this site is SHARING, and the points are not important to us, wouldn �t it be logical to offer this!??
 
I personally send my ws all the time by e-mail so if any of you new members need something from me just send me your e-mail address!
 
Greetings and welcome to all the new members!
 
Sasa

25 May 2009     



**********
Portugal

Zailda, I quite agree with you.
This fuss about reporting other people �s works, ending up in excusing oneself for having reported, and complaining about other people �s worksheets because they don �t meet exactly what they need is starting to annoy me, because it creates a rather unpleasant climate at the entrance of the site.
Let �s make it clear:
1) people come here, because they believe in sharing as a way of learning and diversifying their materials;
2) We don �t have to dowload whatsoever before checking on it; sometimes we are not going to use a whole sheet, but is has some interesting points & ideias and if we think it �s worth dowloading, we do, or just the other way around.
 
So, why all this nagging and complaining? Sometimes I think this people come here and nag, just to poison the whole climate, which was intended to share and enjoy.
 
These people even have the guts to come here and write in bold, big, coloured  letters, as if they were shouting, sometimes in a horrifying English, which is definitely rude.
 
I �d say: just get rid of them: they are harmful. Let them shout, complain, be rude somewhere else. Why do we have to put up with their bad mood?
ClapCongratulations Zailda.
 
A good day to everybody.Hug
Idalina Jorge (nikadixon)
 

25 May 2009     



eng789
Israel

It is unfortunate as moderators, that we need to spend so much time on wss that aren �t in English.  After all,  this is an ESL site, isn �t it?
 
 

25 May 2009     



Vickiii
New Zealand

There are also many worksheets that are falsley reported -

Today someone had gone through a guys whole collection of clipart - and reported it all as not being a set! 

I found that quite rediculous - how did they not notice it was a set - when they were busy reporting all of them??

What a waste of time for moderators - they must think we have nothing better to do.

Sometimes as a moderator it is more about saving peoples work than getting rid of rubbish (ie empty, corrupted and stolen)

25 May 2009     



mena22
Portugal

Good morning my dear Zailda! Good morning to you all, dear friends and colleagues!
 
-  I absolutely agree with you Zailda. Moderators, most of them, are really doing a great job to clean this site, meaning that we  are all contributing to make it a much better site than it is already. Clap 
 
I said most of them, because our job is to "moderate" the reported contributions according to the established rules and not our own personal opinion. This short comment is on one of today �s reported worksheets: "useless"...  Moreover, although I know sometimes the situations we face are exasperating, as the one in the comment below, we must not forget that we are teachers and should act as professionals. This moderator was probably tired of seeing lots of stolen worksheets and couldn �t avoid making this comment, but the point is that it must be avoided at all costs. It �s better to stop for an hour or two and then come back later to finish the job.
 
DO YOU THINK WE ARE STUPID? THIS IS NOT YOUR WORK!!! http://bogglesworldesl.com/games/gameboardembeddedquestions.doc IT IS THE THIRD STOLEN WORKSHEET UPLOADED BY YOU!!!!! PLEASE UPLOAD YOUR OWN W*O*R*K !!!
 
As you and Damielle pointed out, it �s quite sad and disturbing to see the amount of teachers cheating in this site. One wouldn �t expect this in a profession where "education" is the key word in all senses. That �s why I think we must be "patient" and find some time to report those teachers � worksheets and not just the blank ones. After all, what does more harm to the site - a blank worksheet or a stolen/ copied one?
 
I am not going to speculate about the reasons why members cheat and take credit and praise for work that it is not theirs. It is possible, like Borna has said, that some users who do that just want to get their 30 points to start downloading. We cannot, however, reduce the cheating problem to the new users. There are members with a huge amount of points, and I mean HUGE, who are also cheating and I believe it is our duty to take the time to stop them.
 
As for the worksheets that are mostly in another language, as Barbara pointed out, I think many users could save us the trouble to go through them all if they updated their worksheets. Now, about the worksheets that are in English but also have another language, I believe the matter must be discussed because if we look at the comments on the reported contributions page we can see that there are different views on the matter. Must the worksheet be 100% in English or can it have some words or explanations in another language?
 
The falsely reported worksheets is definitely another big problem. Sometimes it happens because people write a thank you note in the wrong box, other times because people say they are scanned or stolen with no evidence of the fact. Please dear members, you could save us a lot of our precious time if you were more careful and  stopped reporting those worksheets.
 
Finally, the set of cards... The fact that people report those flashcards, each one in a different upload, has to do a "misinterpretation" (?) of the rule http://www.eslprintables.com/forum/topic.asp?id=8648    - 
 
 Single flashcards are not allowed, but you can send a SET of flashcards (at least 4).
 
 Most of us, vickii,  made this reading of the rule: a set of cards = at least 4 in the same upload and we are all still confused: http://www.eslprintables.com/forum/topic.asp?id=8657  There are too many doubts yet. I �ve refrained myself from voting lately because I am really not sure about what it is expected from us to "moderate" regarding flashcards.  By the way, I �ve downloaded letter A of the cards you referred to and it �s only 28,5 KB, meaning that at least 10 cards could have been in the same worksheet = 1 upload. So why upload all them separately? Aren �t we trying to save space here? The excuse of an oversized image does not apply in this case. That �s not easy to make a rule with so many particularities...
 
Thank you Zailda for bringing up this issue on the forum.
 
Wish you all a wonderful day.
Hugs from sunny Azores,  Hug
mena
 
 

25 May 2009     



manonski (f)
Canada

"Thank you" and "moderators" in the same sentence? What is going on here today? zailda, you are making my day!Clap

And Mena, as usual, you took some words out of my mind. Great response!

25 May 2009     



zailda
Brazil

I understand that newbies may be eager to download our wss but when I got here I understood that it is a kind of rewarding for our work. I �m used to get everything after hard work so I don �t see the point why it would be different here.

When members get here they should understand that "share" means give and get, and if they want to get anything from here, the rules are clear: they have to pay with points they get through HARD WORK. It was the same for everyone here and I don �t think we should be lenient with them or they can get lazy.

The aim of the site is to develop your work by sharing and if you do nothing, you have nothing to do here. If we give them what they need, they won �t feel the need of doing anything - I think. It �s hard to start something, but I believe in starting the right way. That �s my point of view, at least.

I wrote "useless" when reviewing some blank and corrupted wss, since they can �t be used by anyone, am I right? I think members should check their wss after uploading to make sure everything �s OK with them. That won �t take long and show respect to other members. So check your wss, don �t let corrupted or blank work online. It happened to me once and I updated the ws and everything turned out OK.

I understand that we should be polite when commenting, but sometimes it �s not possible, we are humans and our patience has limits. Sometimes I avoid commenting some wss from people who keep acting unfairly because I feel I would offend them if I said exactly what I think and I �m the kind of person who needs to tell the I �m thinking of and not anything else, even taking the risk of being rude sometimes.

I �ll follow Mena �s advice and try to find some extra time to report other wss besides the corrupted and blank. I don �t report them because I don �t have enough time to check, but I usually review the ones somebody had the time to report.

About false reports, I want to point the fact that we must not use the "reporting thing" as a weapon to destroy people we have something against. Try to use the report form only for wss that are against the site rules and not for members who have ideas against yours.

Have a nice day!

25 May 2009     



rozianne
United Kingdom

I �d just like to add a Newbies Outlook on this.
 
When I arrived here I found the forum to be a very scary place full of STOLEN! NO, IT WAS NOT NOT NOT STOLEN!!! threads. There seemed to be a lot of behind the scenes goings on and I chose to keep out and retain a low profile till I tried to figure things out.
 
Figuring how everything works took quite a while but one rule seemed evidently clear. Your work must be original. I think that is quite clear. It would be nice if there were a clear set of Terms of Service written out that everyone has to sign and agree to before joining and if you break the rules then you get warned and then banned.
 
Moderating the site is an enormous and unenvious task obviously and my hat goes off to everyone who devotes the time to doing that job.
 
This site is like a huge garden full of beautiful flowers but needs careful weeding at times.
 
My question is how are the moderators chosen? I �m still not quite clear on that.
 
Anyway, thanks to all for their efforts.

25 May 2009     



zailda
Brazil

Moderators are members with 1,000 points or more.

26 May 2009