Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: NGTM-1R on January 08, 2011, 09:29:13 pm
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Because of the reasons listed above. The whole reason GD got pushed down to the bottom of HLP is because the discussions got too hot too fast too often. I'm trying to keep this discussion civil and moderated.
We're already about as moderated as this crowd will stand, with the lock-the-moment-the-drama-appears method in place. It's impossible to actually hold any real debate in GD anymore because someone will assume offense is being taken and lock the thread. This is despite the fact the people who were the ones most likely to take offense have all been political prisonered or monkeyed by now.
We're at least in college for the most part, and we expect to be treated in a fashion consistent with being capable of independent thought. We're not going to take much more moderation than we've already got, and your unilateral experiment in strict moderation is reminiscent of something from the 4Kids board. (I say this because I actually visited the place once to bomb a thread being run by someone plagiarizing a friend's writings.) If we're reduced to being treated like that in this thread, it's just going to die, or reduce to a flaming mass of ****posting because we've had enough.
Also, that's pretty revisionist history. The only valid reason GD got moved to the bottom was because it got focus and people wanted the board to be focused on FreeSpace. The current method of moderation was already in place before then, so there was no way for what you describe to still be occurring.
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Split from the US Congresswoman shooting thread, because while what you're saying doesn't pertain to the topic it was being posted in, I don't want you to think that I want to stifle discussion on HLP's moderation policies. It's a fair topic, just not one that belongs in a discussion on US politics.
Anyway, I have no idea about any lock/drama/etc. To be honest, I like the bit where you pointed out that we're college students and we're still treated like kids. That annoys me a lot as well, being a 21 year old student and enraged at a really stupid system.
That being said, all I'm attempting to do is keep a real debate in GD flowing by watching the shooting thread and trying to keep any angry rhetoric down.
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I think there is a repeated error in your post where it says 'we' instead of 'i'
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it's only an error if no one agrees with him
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Oh I actually do agree with him, I think he raises a very good point, but on the other hand he is a loving hilarious split between 60% reasonable and excellent contributor and 40% Trashman with better spelling which means he should probably not be speaking for the GenDisc crowd
my own personal feelings towards gendisc debate are torn between fear and loathing
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When I was referring to college students is the only time I used "we", Battuta. Since both NGTM-1R and I are college students, I fail to see the error you're describing.
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When I was referring to college students is the only time I used "we", Battuta. Since both NGTM-1R and I are college students, I fail to see the error you're describing.
not talking to you
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I think there is a repeated error in your post where it says 'we' instead of 'i'
The problem is you're presenting a false dichotomy. It doesn't matter on which side of the split you fall, I've seen the Lotka.org pulled before and it all goes down in flames one way or another.
(And actually I'm out of college and working now, but that's not really relevant.)
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(And actually I'm out of college and working now, but that's not really relevant.)
hey me toooo look at this ****ing love connection!
and don't get me wrong I agree with the point you're making, it just luffs and luffs and luffs me that you're making it because while you have excellent escalation skills you descalate like a saturn V
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At last! I can't believe we're finally discussing this. And I have to travel tomorrow so I will be without internet for a week. ¬¬
Basically, as I have repeatedly stated, it is my opinion that moderation in GD (and in other forums in HLP too) overuses locks and monkeys (or whatever you call them now). And I think this new moderation policy is better, because it gives the members a chance to exercise self control and it gives the whole forum a chance to keep interesting threads going, instead of having them locked in two pages or less. It's also more frontal, which I appreciate.
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and don't get me wrong I agree with the point you're making, it just luffs and luffs and luffs me that you're making it because while you have excellent escalation skills you descalate like a saturn V
I rarely have a choice in the matter these days.
(I understand you may have trouble detecting a splitlock. Karaj has admitted as much since global mods/admins can still post so they just click mindlessly. :P)
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I will sit down and EFFORT into considering your problems the day I see you concede a single point without sidestepping and using the :P emote
not that I should be talking because I am a tragic space hulk fueled by rage but I do intermittently manage to contain the DRAMA
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I will sit down and EFFORT into considering your problems the day I see you concede a single point without sidestepping and using the :P emote
You could just assume silence is concession like everyone else.
Alternately, you could look around. It's been done before. I'm pretty sure I even used the line "but ignore me, I'm the idiot in the grey jacket" a few times. :wtf:
EDIT BECAUSE RECURSIVE SPLITLOCK IS BAD: I really have to disagree with el_magnifico, since, like I said, it reeks of being treated like a child. It also doesn't work. People won't log in for a socratic seminar and a stated direction is highly prone to abuse.
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it is possible that it was before my time, i shall admit
in any case threads would require less splitlocking if there were not particular areas of debate that did not so inevitably and predictably lead to the exact same conclusion
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I would venture to say both parties are at fault here in some way. The mods might be overusing locks and monkeys, whereas the forum users might be too ready to jump at one another and less willing to simply not post in a thread if they can't say anything without directing it at the other person.
Would anyone disagree with the idea that their side is as much at fault as the other's?
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in any case threads would require less splitlocking if there were not particular areas of debate that did not so inevitably and predictably lead to the exact same conclusion
I think the problem with this statement is that, the majority of the time, there's no way to support it. We've never actually completed a tactics argument, you and I, or even gotten down to real details. It just gets splitlocked. You can't know how it will end because you've never been there. Something similar can be said about the GD discussions that are habitually splitlocked; the crowd has changed and you can no longer know the ending based on past experience.
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maybe it's just the determinist in me but it feels like most of the time you can tell how an argument is going to end six posts in, and yeah, if i see One of Those popping up i'll just spitlock it (heck if i had my druthers I'd just delete but other people seem to have 'standards' and 'conduct')
i suppooooooose i could do it less but on the other hand i...don't do it much so
also i feel like this is not really an issue for most of the forum(ites)
I would venture to say both parties are at fault here in some way. The mods might be overusing locks and monkeys
locks maybe, but mods can't monkey and monkeys are terribly rare, so i don't really know where el is coming from there
we were asked to moderate more tightly a while back and so it has been
anyway this is srs discussion for srs forum and i cba'ed to press shift soooo: gentlemen!
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EDIT BECAUSE RECURSIVE SPLITLOCK IS BAD: I really have to disagree with el_magnifico, since, like I said, it reeks of being treated like a child. It also doesn't work. People won't log in for a socratic seminar and a stated direction is highly prone to abuse.
We seem to have differing concepts of what "being treated like a child" is. I feel treated like a child when someone jumps in a thread and says "Uh, bad boys, you will hurt yourselves playing with this, I will lock it". And I feel treated in a bad way when a mod keeps posting and addressing other members after they've locked the thread.
On the other hand, when someone actually uses their authority in a respectable way, I feel more inclined to comply. Am I right in assuming we both agree in that authority is a necessary thing? Even if we disagree on how authority should be applied, and what limits it should have?
I would venture to say both parties are at fault here in some way. The mods might be overusing locks and monkeys, whereas the forum users might be too ready to jump at one another and less willing to simply not post in a thread if they can't say anything without directing it at the other person.
Would anyone disagree with the idea that their side is as much at fault as the other's?
It may be, but it's still worth the try to apply a different moderating policy, and see what happens.
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Moderators are human too, I have seen occasions where a Moderator posting as a member of the boards has been mistaken for a Moderater in some way representing the boards position.
The hard part is, and always will be, differenciating behaviour from opinion, an offensive opinion does not neccessarily require locking unless it is presented in an offensive manner, and that's something that is the responsibility of the poster, however, Moderators, I feel, also need to be careful to be certain why they are locking the thread, is it because it contains people who are offensive, or opinions that they find offensive? It's a lot harder question to answer than many posters realise.
Considering some of the reasons people have found to report posts on occasion, it's quite obvious that people don't always understand the job that Moderators are supposed to do, but that's ok, I'm not certain I fully understand the job I'm supposed to be doing, it's just really a question of making sure the discussion stays civil and polite, and even that isn't easy because different people, even different countries, have different opinions on what is 'civil and polite'.
As an example, I remember a comment a long time ago that went along the lines of 'You are either just trolling, or you don't know what you are talking about'. That, to some sections of the board would be considered a perfectly acceptable comment, to other members of the board it's offensive, because its effectively calling the person an idiot, just using a lot of words to do so, so it always helps to re-read your posts before actually submitting them and trying to empathise with the person reading it :)
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Moderators are human too, I have seen occasions where a Moderator posting as a member of the boards has been mistaken for a Moderater in some way representing the boards position.
Then I could even go as far as recommending using two different accounts: One for your "regular member" persona, and one exclusively for moderation. Like it or not, when you express an opinion on a hot topic, and then act upon that opinion, people will tend to believe it's a staff opinion and period, and will see that as authoritarian. At least changing your "uniform" will help a little.
Well, I have a lot of things to do and it's quite late here already. I will check this thread in the morning.
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I've never particularly felt that locks are overused. Whenever a lock doesn't have good enough reason behind it, it usually gets reversed. shrug.
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To be honest, I think I've locked maybe 2 threads in the last 6 months, and one of those was in Gaming...
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Maybe it's my EVE experience talking, or maybe the nostalgia filter. But I'm not even sure we still have the capacity in here for the sort of knock-down drag-outs that the moderation apparently feared and got more strict because of awhile back. Trash and Liberator and Kazan are gone.
And the all-pervading "no drama plz" that seems to govern current moderation appears to honestly stifle discussion. I'm not suggesting we unmonkey the crowd again. (In the name of all that is good and right, I swear I'm not. Please don't.) A little drama might be a necessary price to pay to enable GD or other forums to flourish.
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i've only been here like two years and i have psychic powers
the biggest debate topics always follow the same pattern, eventually leading to drama, monkeyings, and locks
people get SO. SRS. and it's hard not to when debating a serious topic
so on the one hand, srs threads lead to srs raeg
but on the other, there are always little gems of knowledge and wisdom hidden in the drama
sigh
i have decided that i don't care about this subject anymore
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Where did we have that very informative, decently civilized Teleportation thread a while back?
I miss that one.
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I'm glad someone brought this up.
I'm a participate in another forum that's been running independently since 1999 - formed, maintained, and populated by a group of gamers. Granted, it's somewhat private and has maybe ~60 active members, but I raise it because it is, quite literally, completely unmoderated. About 6 people are administrators that take care of technical and housekeeping (e.g. wrong folder, double post) issues, but there are no policies, no moderators, no locking, very few splits, and in general it is up to the community to police itself.
And it works.
While that model might not work here due to the number (and ages) of the membership, I'd also agree that the locking gets a little heavy-handed... and I get particularly irked when a thread I'm contributing to gets locked/unlocked/locked repeatedly. And yes, that happened not two months ago.
All in all, GD posts are more prone to getting out of hand, but I think there's a fair argument to be made for less formal moderation and more correction by peers - you get enough people actively contributing to a thread (even if they are debating) and the useless nitwits will eventually give up, fade out, or be entirely ignored.
Nothing against the moderators we have, but personally I'd prefer if GD were left unmoderated, save for housekeeping matters - it's general discussion, who gives a **** if some people get out of hand - the rest of us are perfectly capable of acting like adults and ignoring them.
Just my $0.02
And Battuta, if you don't start capitalizing the first letter in your sentences again, I'm going to track down your address and mail you a box of old keyboards with nothing on them but Shift keys, so help me.
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Personally, I try to keep moderation to an absolute minimum, usually just a quick word of 'calm down guys' is enough to make people take a breath, but I think no Moderation at all wouldn't work for the exact reasons you stated, as well as the fact that we have a changing demographic in here, I think a lack of Moderation would give the wrong message because not everyone in GD has a vested interest in Freespace SCP.
My concern is that, without Moderation, GD would end up as HLP's Mos Eisley, a place where the faint of heart dare not go because they are terrified of stating an opinion that a flamebaiter doesn't agree with and being attacked. Sometimes 'Freedom of Speech' means supplying an even platform for all people, rather than simpy letting people say what they like.
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Basically, as I have repeatedly stated, it is my opinion that moderation in GD (and in other forums in HLP too) overuses locks and monkeys (or whatever you call them now).
Eh? At this time Hard Light Monkeys is empty and there are only 3 members of the Political Prisoners , High Max (who I will remove as he's banned anyway), Liberator and Trashman. I'd love to see anyone tell me that either of those two is able to act like a mature adult in a rational political debate.
As for the rest. I'm quite happy to sit on the sidelines and let you guys debate this a bit more before I state my opinions on the matter. Don't want to make it look like I'm trying to prevent this debate.
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I will say this as an aside, this board does lean to the left, there's no real point in denying that, and it can be a problem on occasion. I know I lean to the left, and so do a lot of the Moderators, and it does cause complications when we are faced with strong views on things like Homosexuality or Abortion. As I said before, we are humans too.
Personally, I think we hit a pretty good medium to be honest, there are boards that are unmoderated, and there are boards that will happily delete threads about Politics or Religion or anything of that ilk within a few posts. We have a strong anti-deletion policy on HLP, it's only done if considered absolutely essential, and as far as locks are concerned, well, as I said earlier, that's partly down to cultural differences, and partly down to the fact that after a while as a Moderator you learn to spot threads that are headed nowhere or into an argument, and it's often better to nip it in the bud. Do we jump the gun on occasion? Quite possibly. Often threads are locked not because of the content of a post, but because, after several years, you just know when you're about to have to read several pages of responses to that one particular post as everyone queues up to bash the poster.
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Ironically the issue when Kazan used to shout a lot on this board was that it leant to the right. :p
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Ironically the issue when Kazan used to shout a lot on this board was that it leant to the right. :p
No, we still pretty much leaned to the left, it's just Kazan, as aldo once observed, was so incredibly annoying people would disagree so as not to be on the same side as him.
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:lol: Admittedly, Kazan used phrases like 'Christofascists' so we aren't talking about someone who didn't promote the grief he got ;) Same with Lib and his views on Liberals or certain views on Republicans that are expressed on here. We can tend to land harder on those who generalise Liberals and left-leaning views than those who generalise about Right-wing supporters, it's not a definite, immediate problem, but it is something I think we need to be aware of :)
Edit: The ironic part is that about 5 years ago, this thread would have been locked by Shrike with the comment 'Benevolent Dictatorship'...
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I think General Discussion debates should be settled in FS2 multiplayer matches. Obviously the out come of dogfighting should divine the truth of the matter, might makes right afterall.
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Ironically the issue when Kazan used to shout a lot on this board was that it leant to the right. :p
No, we still pretty much leaned to the left, it's just Kazan, as aldo once observed, was so incredibly annoying people would disagree so as not to be on the same side as him.
I'm actually referring to his comment that the active moderation staff at the time were all right wingers. Of course he was completely robbed of that argument as soon as I became a global mod and eventually an admin. But at that time he did have a point.
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Ironically the issue when Kazan used to shout a lot on this board was that it leant to the right. :p
No, we still pretty much leaned to the left, it's just Kazan, as aldo once observed, was so incredibly annoying people would disagree so as not to be on the same side as him.
Wether 'this board' tends to lean to the left or right is up to debate as well. In Dutch politics, the progressive liberals and the christian democrats are viewed upon as 'right wing' by the socialists and green parties and 'left wing' by the conservative liberals and the populists.
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When talking about politics you might as well use the American definitions cause there are few debates from other countries where anyone disagrees. :p
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When talking about politics you might as well use the American definitions cause there are few debates from other countries where anyone disagrees. :p
But the american ones are so narrow!
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The problem doesn't lie in what political positions the mods/admins tend to represent. It's inevitable that political debates come about from time to time and regular members and mods/admins have to deal with each other.
The problem is that personal attacks are basically allowed and encouraged. GenDisc and recently Missions and Campaigns lacks a general humanity that the community once had. Trolling is not punished. Take a look at Relentless's release thread. Instead of its participants being banned for a LONG time (To be fair, for four years, because that's the amount it took for KappaWing to make the campaign), nothing happened. As soon as the first negative "reviews," which had nothing to do with the campaign, arrived, people had an open invitation to join the bandwagon. No one got punished but KappaWing, whose release thread was allowed to die. Instead of banning the trolls and those couple of individuals responsible to derailing and killing the thread. Trolling is encouraged. If it happens in your release thread, bad luck. It is the thread that is at fault, not the persons that post in it.
Same thing happens in the current Turkish dissertation thread. Personal attacks are rife. If something happens, it will be at most a lock. Nothing more. Then the same persons continue the flamethrowing in a different thread. Then that gets locked, and the whole process starts again.
HLP needs a lot more bans and monkeying. Simply locking threads solves nothing. Nothing at all.
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except locks and bans were not the norm in the good ole days, trolling and flame waring were.
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I'm more disturbed with the "OMG someone post in a necro thread". If a subject is relevant to the poster's situation, I don't know why it's a crime to post in it.
It's maybe something I don't understand because I'm not here for a long time, and maybe someone can explain it to me ?
When I encounter some difficulties about FreeSpace, it's not a problem for me to browse the previous subjects -even the very old ones- to find a solution before opening a new thread. But for now I will hesitate to post in a old thread.
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Take a look at Relentless's release thread. Instead of its participants being banned for a LONG time (To be fair, for four years, because that's the amount it took for KappaWing to make the campaign), nothing happened. As soon as the first negative "reviews," which had nothing to do with the campaign
Let us stop here for a moment. The first negative reviews, or rather, bug reports definitely DID have something to do with the campaign, in so far as his mod was not as stable or polished as it could have been. The fact that there was no or not enough discussion about the story is beside the point, really. People will talk about what they want to talk about; in this case, they wanted to talk about the technical issues surrounding the mod.
Also, looking back on the thread now, while I would agree that our conduct there could have been better, I still think the basic reaction was the right one. Also note that several people came forward to actually try and fix the issues that came up; That Deka then went on to rage and rage about people finding and reporting bugs rather than appreciate the story was, I think, not entirely our fault.
, arrived, people had an open invitation to join the bandwagon.
Those people being me, Jeff Vader, and arguably High Max.
No one got punished but KappaWing, whose release thread was allowed to die. Instead of banning the trolls and those couple of individuals responsible to derailing and killing the thread.
Seeing as some of those individuals actually provided fixes for the problems they found, that would have been a bit hard to argue, no?
Trolling is encouraged. If it happens in your release thread, bad luck. It is the thread that is at fault, not the persons that post in it.
Does the phrase "case-by-case basis" mean anything to you?
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It's a much better tactic to start a new thread and simply link to the old one. Old topics can get peoples backs up for numerous reasons.
1. It can confuse people who think that it's a new topic and don't notice the dates.
2. It can reignite arguments best left dead. No one is going to bump an old topic to start an argument up again from 2-3 years ago. But if the topic is bumped and people don't notice, you can cause problems
3. Since the topic starter is quite likely to be someone no longer active it can cause people to get happy (or angry) thinking someone is back only to annoy them when they aren't. Do you really want people reading your post when they are already angry with you? :p
As for the trolling and flaming issue. I'm quite happy to go back to the old zero tolerance policy on flaming if people would prefer that. At least that way it keeps everyone creative with their rudeness. :p
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...As for the trolling and flaming issue. I'm quite happy to go back to the old zero tolerance policy on flaming if people would prefer that. At least that way it keeps everyone creative with their rudeness. :p
Yes, please.
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To me the answer is quite simple. Don't flame.
Moderators, I know that sometimes the line blurs, but facts are facts and opinions are opnions. A thread should never be closed due to the opinions expressed within, but, when the fact of the matter is a question of HOW those opinions were expressed, we have another story entirely.
If you take offense, report the post and be sure to state WHY you take offense. In my opinion Liberator has a very narrow viewpoint. As a Christian I tried to empathize with him more than once, but there is one lesson he forgot, and that is tolerance. I remember stepping in where he and UT (iirc) were arguing heavily over Christianity and Paganism. I made the same points that Liberator did, but I did so in a non offensive manner, mostly because I have actually studied Paganism, and it allowed us to actually debate instead of argue in a religeon based thread. I tihnk the end of the thread was a simple agreement that we will never believe in our stance more than when we are forced to defend it. Any thread leading to a controversial issue needs to take a lesson from that and realize that we are discussing the issue at hand, and our feelings about it. Calling someone an idiot because the view they have differs from ours is not just unacceptable, it shows a person who thinks they may well lose the arguement and since attacking the issue doesn't seem to help, they attack the person of the oposing viewpoint. That's just my take and my opinion.
My lady is a staunch democrat who is very politically minded, and my brother is the same way, but republican. Imagine my fear at the thought of my brother spending a week with us. They debated constantly, and all I could think, knowing the two of them as I do, was that a fight would erupt any moment. I am happy to say that I was wrong, and I learned that "That's a good point, but I don't see it that way" goes a long way toward keeping things civil.
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Alright, long, and I mean loooooooooooooooooooooooooooong, post ahead:
I've never particularly felt that locks are overused. Whenever a lock doesn't have good enough reason behind it, it usually gets reversed. shrug.
I'm questioning what constitutes a good enough reason for a lock, and if a lock is always the best answer even in those cases.
And the all-pervading "no drama plz" that seems to govern current moderation appears to honestly stifle discussion.
Yes, we agree on that. Even though I admit there should be a limit for the drama, this "zero tolerance for drama" atmosphere is suffocating.
Eh? At this time Hard Light Monkeys is empty and there are only 3 members of the Political Prisoners , High Max (who I will remove as he's banned anyway), Liberator and Trashman. I'd love to see anyone tell me that either of those two is able to act like a mature adult in a rational political debate.
What about this? http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=73625.0 (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=73625.0)
So you have at least four persons permabanned from GenDisc. That actually seems like a lot to me, compared to other forums where I go.
Now, about High Max, I've yet to see the reason why he was banned. He was a bit quick to anger, but in my experience he was just as quick to calm down. Maybe he wasn't the brightest member out there, but I still don't know why he was outright banned.
About Liberator, again, not the brightest member, but I'm still under the impression he got prisoned just because he was right-winger. I mean, yes, he was stubborn, and he couldn't articulate a reasonable argument even if his life depended on it, but I feel, based on my experience here, that If he would have been a left-winger, there would have been more tolerance for him. Note that I'm not saying this because I liked him, since he seemed to have a really bad opinion about Latin Americans, almost bordering on xenophobia.
Charismatic? I don't have a clue. I don't remember ever interacting with him, so I will not question, nor endorse, this sanction.
Trashman, as far as I know, was prisoned because he gratuitously insulted another member whom he was having a heated argument with. I remember reading those particular posts long ago. I have no objection against this sanction.
and partly down to the fact that after a while as a Moderator you learn to spot threads that are headed nowhere or into an argument
And why is that bad? Is small talk a bad thing to have? I guess this topic (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=73695.0 (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=73695.0)) was locked because it was heading nowhere, and we were just having fun with animated gifs. But why is that bad? It probably would have gotten old within a week, and would have faded away on its own.
Arguments WILL happen inside human groups. Trying to avoid them will only accumulate tension, until it explodes in an uncontrollable way. I think the role of mods is not to keep members away from arguments, but to make sure arguments are sorted out in a reasonably civic way, or via PM's if all else fails.
HLP needs a lot more bans and monkeying. Simply locking threads solves nothing. Nothing at all.
If we have to choose between lots of locks and lots of monkeys, I would prefer lots of monkeys. It would be better if we can have an equilibrium and more warnings and peer intervention, but still...
As an example: In other forums I've been to, extremely heated arguments that went down to verbal violence usually ended up with a temporary ban, until both parties settled it via mail or PM, and apologized with each other.
Off topic: I'm not really sure, but it seems that my english is improving.
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High Max got banned from EVERYWHERE on HLP because he went back and systematically edited his 500 or so most recent posts to all read ";-)" or some **** like that, making some threads totally illegible. He was also notorious for editing his posts to remove arguments that he wished to deny he'd ever made.
Liberator got banned for raising argumentative points and then ignoring everything said in opposition to them, spouting another point, and again ignoring all constructions against it.
Hope that helps
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Seriously? Four people permabanned from GD, out of a forum with ~10000 members is a lot? Andd as Scotty said, all those members have proven, over and over again, that they are incapable of contributing to the discussions in GD. That their entry in a discussion is almost guaranteed to derail the thread, or contribute nothing but uninformed, heavily biased, trollish, inflaming posts?
I'm questioning what constitutes a good enough reason for a lock, and if a lock is always the best answer even in those cases.
Given that as moderators, our options when confronted with a thread that seems to need moderation are, in no particular order:
1. Delete the thread
2. Delete the offending posts
3. Alter the offending posts
4. Split the thread at the point of derailment
5. Locking the thread in its entirety
6. Moving it to a place where the thread is better housed.
Of these, 1 and 2, while not forbidden, are only used to deal with spambots. 3 is heavily frowned upon. 4, 5 and 6 are therefore the only options realistically available, and option 5 is the easiest.
Trying to avoid them will only accumulate tension, until it explodes in an uncontrollable way. I think the role of mods is not to keep members away from arguments, but to make sure arguments are sorted out in a reasonably civic way, or via PM's if all else fails.
Given the instruments available to us moderators, just what would you use to make this happen?
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I don't think the zero policy is suffocating. Debate is debate, arguement is arguement. Flaming is flaming. NGTM was right, we for the most part are in college or older. How about we just act like it, instead of acting like we are in high school and hitting someone for no better reason than, he talked to my girlfriend. I have no problem with a debate, even a heated debate. I do have a problem with arguement for the sake of arguement, and I have a huge problem with flaming for the sake of flaming. The bottom line is simple, if we as a collective want the moderators to treat us adults, then we'd damned sure better act like adults. If a poster has something to add the debate then by all means say it. If not, do us all a favor and shut the hell up so that we can continue the debate without it being closed for no other reason than people weren't bright enough or grown up enough to have debate without it turning into a flame session.
Even worse than the flaming is the people who bait the flaming so that they can look like a martyr. Need I say more?
I'm not an eloquent speaker and I know this, but what I am is a man doesn't see things in terms of black and white, but in terms of right and wrong. I'll sum up my attitude on this easily. Either be an adult in your debate or deal with the consequences.
The mods and admins don't get paid, they do a thankless job and catch more hell from the people who benefit from them than anything else. If you come to HLP and can't deal with how things are, then don't come back. If you are a longtime member then you know how things are and you continue to be here. You've already accepted how things are and have forfeited the right to yell about it. If you want things to change, don't directly fight the things you want to change, instead adopt a circular attack pattern. Attack the reasons that things won't change, and generally speaking, the reason is the maturity that people tend to display in politicoreligeous threads. Calm that down and maybe things will change.
I am neither an admin nor a mod, but in ten years i've seen this arguement too many damned times.
I'm guilty as well as most. So i'll start here. Liberator, if you can read this, I apologize for the times I personally baited you, and flamed you. It won't happen again, you have my word.
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I'm going to catch hell for this, but perhaps we need different moderators then.
Dekker has turned out okay, but Nuke, by his own admission, simply locks threads because he doesn't like them, not because of their content. You, E, and Battuta, have both proved hairtrigger and inflammatory by turns, perhaps out of a self-admitted belief that you're better than most posters. In addition Battuta of late has taken to condescending at best and childish at worst posting habits. The relatively newer moderators have, for the most part, turned out to be a problem in and of themselves.
So maybe we can continue with the status quo ante, but not using the tools in place. Perhaps it's time to turn Global Mod duties over to Scotty, Shadowwolf, and Dilmah instead.
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Seriously? Four people permabanned from GD, out of a forum with ~10000 members is a lot?
How many of them are active members? To me, it looks like the number of active regular members and the number of admins, global mods, and mods, is pretty much the same. It may only be my impression, but still, the number of active members is definitely less than 10000. So yes, seriously.
Given that as moderators, our options when confronted with a thread that seems to need moderation are, in no particular order:
1. Delete the thread
2. Delete the offending posts
3. Alter the offending posts
4. Split the thread at the point of derailment
5. Locking the thread in its entirety
6. Moving it to a place where the thread is better housed.
Of these, 1 and 2, while not forbidden, are only used to deal with spambots. 3 is heavily frowned upon. 4, 5 and 6 are therefore the only options realistically available, and option 5 is the easiest.
Irrelevant. I know those are your options, and trust me you still have a better set of tools available than many mods in other forums. Yet you haven't answered the central question: What constitutes a good enough reason to intervene? And since you ask, take the topic that originated this one as an example. I admit I wasn't behaving (I'm not the only one, but still). Unknown Target gave me and the others a warning. We all toned it down. Now the topic is back on track. No lock was needed.
Given the instruments available to us moderators, just what would you use to make this happen?
Actual human intervention. Your title is "moderator", not "thread locker". If trying to tone down things with a warning and with moderation fails, I can understand the locking.
And, in the most extreme cases:
As an example: In other forums I've been to, extremely heated arguments that went down to verbal violence usually ended up with a temporary ban, until both parties settled it via mail or PM, and apologized with each other.
The mods and admins don't get paid, they do a thankless job and catch more hell from the people who benefit from them than anything else.
The topic was brought in. I have an opinion on it, which may be wrong or right, but it's my opinion. I think it will help to improve this place. So I will express it.
If you come to HLP and can't deal with how things are, then don't come back.
If you can't deal with feedback and constructive criticism that was actually asked by a mod and isn't even directed at you, then it's not my problem.
I also strongly dislike comments like that. If this is a select club and no criticism should be ever expressed, then tell me now, so I can leave immediately.
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I'm going to catch hell for this, but perhaps we need different moderators then.
Dekker has turned out okay, but Nuke, by his own admission, simply locks threads because he doesn't like them, not because of their content. You, E, and Battuta, have both proved hairtrigger and inflammatory by turns, perhaps out of a self-admitted belief that you're better than most posters. In addition Battuta of late has taken to condescending at best and childish at worst posting habits. The relatively newer moderators have, for the most part, turned out to be a problem in and of themselves.
So maybe we can continue with the status quo ante, but not using the tools in place. Perhaps it's time to turn Global Mod duties over to Scotty, Shadowwolf, and Dilmah instead.
this is a pretty reasonable post except that 2 of your 3 replacements would be terribad
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this is a pretty reasonable post except that 2 of your 3 replacements would be terribad
Your opinion is noted, but given your ability to make longterm board members quit out of disgust, not likely useful.
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It's a much better tactic to start a new thread and simply link to the old one. Old topics can get peoples backs up for numerous reasons.
1. It can confuse people who think that it's a new topic and don't notice the dates.
2. It can reignite arguments best left dead. No one is going to bump an old topic to start an argument up again from 2-3 years ago. But if the topic is bumped and people don't notice, you can cause problems
3. Since the topic starter is quite likely to be someone no longer active it can cause people to get happy (or angry) thinking someone is back only to annoy them when they aren't. Do you really want people reading your post when they are already angry with you? :p
At the same time, though, the phrase "necro'd!" gets thrown around by certain individuals far more often than it needs to (god i hate that beam kill it with fiyah), and there are instances when using a pre-existing thread is perfectly acceptable. For one, stickied threads are always open to new posts, and posting in a campaign's original release thread to comment on it is generally considered just fine too. There are a few other occasions when a thread about a specific topic is just two or three months old that I generally don't mind seeing new posts in, either. But really, if there's any doubt in your mind about posting in a specific thread, just do as karajorma suggests and start a new thread with a link to the old one, just to avoid any chance of people snapping at you. :p
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What constitutes a good enough reason to intervene?
Leaving apart the stuff that is counter to forum policies (spamming, direct links to pirated materials, pron....), and further leaving out general cleanup business (Threads that belong to FSO Support that are posted somewhere else, stuff that belongs in GD being posted elsewhere), my personal rule is that once I get the impression that what is discussed isn't adding anything new to the discussion, or is just a rehashing of an earlier argument, then it's time to bust out the lock. I may be overzealous sometimes, but that's what PMs and post reportings are for. Neither I, nor the other moderators, are the final authority in these matters, and different moderators may have differing opinions about a lock.
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this is a pretty reasonable post except that 2 of your 3 replacements would be terribad
Your opinion is noted, but given your ability to make longterm board members quit out of disgust, not likely useful.
not like he's the only mod/admin to do that :\
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I'm going to catch hell for this, but perhaps we need different moderators then.
Dekker has turned out okay, but Nuke, by his own admission, simply locks threads because he doesn't like them, not because of their content. You, E, and Battuta, have both proved hairtrigger and inflammatory by turns, perhaps out of a self-admitted belief that you're better than most posters. In addition Battuta of late has taken to condescending at best and childish at worst posting habits. The relatively newer moderators have, for the most part, turned out to be a problem in and of themselves.
So maybe we can continue with the status quo ante, but not using the tools in place. Perhaps it's time to turn Global Mod duties over to Scotty, Shadowwolf, and Dilmah instead.
I'd like to submit my candidacy for Global Mod. As you can see I did a great job curbing the massive amounts of trolling on FSmodding. Also Hades and iamzack. :yes:
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What constitutes a good enough reason to intervene?
Leaving apart the stuff that is counter to forum policies (spamming, direct links to pirated materials, pron....), and further leaving out general cleanup business (Threads that belong to FSO Support that are posted somewhere else, stuff that belongs in GD being posted elsewhere), my personal rule is that once I get the impression that what is discussed isn't adding anything new to the discussion, or is just a rehashing of an earlier argument, then it's time to bust out the lock. I may be overzealous sometimes, but that's what PMs and post reportings are for. Neither I, nor the other moderators, are the final authority in these matters, and different moderators may have differing opinions about a lock.
OK, at least in your case now I know the criteria. Still, I have to wonder why don't you just let the topic fade away on its own. There are times when a thread is locked and some members (like myself) had something to add to it. When you lock it just because it looks like it's finished, we lose that chance. Also, it would be nice if you could actually state why you lock things (following your example, you could say: "It looks like the debate is over and everyone has stated their opinion, so I'm locking this.")
(god i hate that beam kill it with fiyah)
So I guess you wouldn't like it if I were to make an animated version of it? :P
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So maybe we can continue with the status quo ante, but not using the tools in place. Perhaps it's time to turn Global Mod duties over to Scotty, Shadowwolf, and Dilmah instead.
Me? Really? I'm touched.
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Me? Really? I'm touched.
To be honest I was just throwing out the first three names that came to mind with a fairly evenhanded posting history here. If you're on IRC I can't say for sure.
Snail is doing a good job of demonstrating why I didn't use his name. :P
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just a few things to clarify:
El magnifico:
I never said not to express an opinion. I have never and will never ask anyone not to exercise the right to express an opinion on a subject. Express away. I wasn't making an observation concerning this thread, I was making an observation in general about the crap that our mods and admins deal with daily.
That should actually cover both things you quoted from me. But on your second statement, you quoted me out of context. I think that perhaps a language or at least idiom barrier happened here. The meaning of that statement was that none are forced to ever return if they don't like something about HLP. The rest of the paragraph went on to explain a different tactic for bringing about change to something you don't like. Yelling directly at the mods and admins will not work, as you then force them to defense, and once on defense they are vehement and steadfast in defending how things work here.
Now whether you stay or not is of course entirely your choice, but let me state that while you and I may have differing opinions, you seem the sort who can hold a debate without it turning into flamefest, and I think we as a whole are better people like you here.
As far as my name being thrown in as a global mod...that's a horrible idea. I have neither the time nor energy to be effective at it, and if I did it would still be a terrible idea. I would epitomize Gunny Ermie in the geiko commercial. "Does a former drill sgt make a lousy therapist?" That would be me as a mod, because again, I would have neither the time, the energy, nor the inclination to explain my actions.
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Well, as far as I'm concerned, if I'm a Mod, I'm a Mod, if I'm not, I'm not. I'll keep doing the job as long as I'm required to, it's not something I could honestly say I look forward to doing or get any sort of kick out of, in fact, it's a pain in the arse on occasion, but it is a job that needs to be done.
I suppose the question people should be asking is 'Why do we need Moderators anyway?', and in that situation, the buck stops at the posters.
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Why hasn't this been locked yet?
It's just flaming now.
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While I elaborate a longer response for some of the posts here (it will take me a while), I wanted to apologize with The E if I said or did anything that could offend him. I didn't knew he had serious problems in his real life (like Battuta seemed to imply), and since he usually seems to be the kind of person that likes both to treat and to be treated in a frontal and sometimes rough way...
Again, I apologize.
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Why hasn't this been locked yet?
It's just flaming now.
I guess people are resisting locking a thread specifically about how we're locking too many threads...
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I'm going to catch hell for this, but perhaps we need different moderators then.
Dekker has turned out okay, but Nuke, by his own admission, simply locks threads because he doesn't like them, not because of their content. You, E, and Battuta, have both proved hairtrigger and inflammatory by turns, perhaps out of a self-admitted belief that you're better than most posters. In addition Battuta of late has taken to condescending at best and childish at worst posting habits. The relatively newer moderators have, for the most part, turned out to be a problem in and of themselves.
This.
I don't want to flame anyone, but I wish there was more modesty around here. :sigh:
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Why hasn't this been locked yet?
It's just flaming now.
I guess people are resisting locking a thread specifically about how we're locking too many threads...
I have yet to see a reason to lock it. I see people disagreeing with one another and not flaming each other. I see where it can turn into an arguement, but don't see it getting heated. If i were a mod, i certainly wouldn't close it yet.
The E:
As far as whatever it is you are going through, i hope things work out for the best. Sometimes the best may not be what we want, and sometimes it seems like all the doors are closed, but there are times when it is best to go through the open window anyway. Either way, whetever it is, our thoughts go with you.
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Nah', I've finally decided to cut the post short:
just a few things to clarify:
El magnifico:
I never said not to express an opinion. I have never and will never ask anyone not to exercise the right to express an opinion on a subject. Express away. I wasn't making an observation concerning this thread, I was making an observation in general about the crap that our mods and admins deal with daily.
That should actually cover both things you quoted from me. But on your second statement, you quoted me out of context. I think that perhaps a language or at least idiom barrier happened here. The meaning of that statement was that none are forced to ever return if they don't like something about HLP. The rest of the paragraph went on to explain a different tactic for bringing about change to something you don't like. Yelling directly at the mods and admins will not work, as you then force them to defense, and once on defense they are vehement and steadfast in defending how things work here.
Now whether you stay or not is of course entirely your choice, but let me state that while you and I may have differing opinions, you seem the sort who can hold a debate without it turning into flamefest, and I think we as a whole are better people like you here.
Alright, don't worry. I internally read that as "if you don't like it, go away!", and trust me I've quitted or changed a lot of things in my life immediately after hearing that, usually slamming the door while leaving. It's one of those things you know you're doing wrong in life, but you feel extremely compelled to do anyway. As you've been a member for such a long time, it kind of triggered that reaction inside me. As I now know that wasn't your intention, everything is fine. ;)
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Nah', I've finally decided to cut the post short:
just a few things to clarify:
El magnifico:
I never said not to express an opinion. I have never and will never ask anyone not to exercise the right to express an opinion on a subject. Express away. I wasn't making an observation concerning this thread, I was making an observation in general about the crap that our mods and admins deal with daily.
That should actually cover both things you quoted from me. But on your second statement, you quoted me out of context. I think that perhaps a language or at least idiom barrier happened here. The meaning of that statement was that none are forced to ever return if they don't like something about HLP. The rest of the paragraph went on to explain a different tactic for bringing about change to something you don't like. Yelling directly at the mods and admins will not work, as you then force them to defense, and once on defense they are vehement and steadfast in defending how things work here.
Now whether you stay or not is of course entirely your choice, but let me state that while you and I may have differing opinions, you seem the sort who can hold a debate without it turning into flamefest, and I think we as a whole are better people like you here.
Alright, don't worry. I internally read that as "if you don't like it, go away!", and trust me I've quitted or changed a lot of things in my life immediately after hearing that, usually slamming the door while leaving. It's one of those things you know you're doing wrong in life, but you feel extremely compelled to do anyway. As you've been a member for such a long time, it kind of triggered that reaction inside me. As I now know that wasn't your intention, everything is fine. ;)
My first reaction to your post was "Make sure you close the door on the way out."
These days i tend to step back and think before i speak though. Had i spoken my gut reaction, you would have left with hard feelings, and HLP would be without yet one more person who could add a different perspective to a conversation.
Instead I thought about where you were coming from on it, and it gave me perspective. I am not an eloquent speaker, and as usual, what I tried to say came out wrong, which is to say, at least you heard me wrong. Maybe if we try to find a reason for someone's anger instead of giving in to our own, things like this can be avoided. It really does go back to, if we want to be treated as adults, then we'd damned sure better act like adults.
I've seen too many good people who contributed a lot of work leave HLP because of this kind of thing. I've seen admins and mods leave because of the constant arguing and bickering. I have no wish to perpetuate yet another. Even people I don't like probably have something to offer, or they wouldn't have come here in the first place. We would all do well to remember that.
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I haven't been keeping up on this discussion.
Moderating a discussion has a lot to do with respect for others, in my opinion. The moderators should, in my opinion, be respected enough so that they shouldn't have to moderate anything (i.e. "don't piss off the mods"), while at the same time I feel that the moderators should not get that respect for simply being mods, they need to earn it (i.e. "the mods are dicks, we shouldn't listen to them anyway"). It's a two way street that I think both folks need to learn to check themselves before doing anything.
For moderators, I would say that if you are moderating a thread, as in legitimately watching it for the sole purpose of keeping a discussion going, as opposed to entering your opinion into it, then that's all you should ever do in that thread. That is a self check. If you find that you simply cannot not discuss a topic in a thread without editorializing your responses (this requires you to honestly think about every post you write), then you should be representing yourself as a regular forum member and not a mod - that means that, if you feel the topic becomes too heated, you should call in another mod to take a look at it. This is what I would do, if you feel you have a compelling argument to the contrary then I would beg of you to present it.
That being said, the users should have a recourse to air their grievances, and the mod in question should probably at least try to listen. For instance, this thread split, instead of simply split/locking, gives the community a way to voice their grievances and a way to let the mods grade their own performance.
The difficulty with moderators is that there's no checks and balances on them for the most part, other than the fact that we can't ban people (admin only right, however when we request a ban or a monkey it's obviously examined closely). That means that a lot of a moderator's job is based solely on their own ability to remain level headed and even handed. The community can offer it's own voices on whether or not a moderator is doing a good job of that, but in the end it is up to the individual. The best moderator, in my opinion, is the one that would willingly step down from his post because he believes he's doing a poor job. Before anyone says "well why don't you step down???", the answers is because I do not think that I am doing a poor job.
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Sometimes refusing to continue the discussion and just walking away is the best thing to do anyway. People talk of ragequitting as though it were a bad thing, but considering the other options, it's possibly the best outcome on occasion, so long as it isn't permanent.
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I'll be posting on the subject of moderation on the internal some point soon. I do think this is something that the mods need to discuss with the admins. Getting a second, impartial opinion is a good idea though. I don't think I've banned anyone without getting a second opinion except when we instituting a zero tolerance policy on flaming. Back then it wasn't really necessary to check as calling someone an idiot got you banned.
At the same time, though, the phrase "necro'd!" gets thrown around by certain individuals far more often than it needs to (god i hate that beam kill it with fiyah), and there are instances when using a pre-existing thread is perfectly acceptable. For one, stickied threads are always open to new posts, and posting in a campaign's original release thread to comment on it is generally considered just fine too.
Agreed with on all points. I'm pretty sure I've had a go at people for overuse of the Necro beam in the past (I've had a go at people about every other beam for certain :p ). As with the calls to lock a topic or shouting "In B4 Lock" when used on those threads they're at best spam and at worst an attempt to tell the moderator to follow the herd rather than exercise their own judgement.
Again, if you want me to tell people off for misusing it more often, I'm happy to. With great power comes great responsibility and if you're wielding a beam cannon and not bothering to check your targets you're going to end up facing a court martial soon enough. :p
What about this? http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=73625.0 (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=73625.0)
So you have at least four persons permabanned from GenDisc. That actually seems like a lot to me, compared to other forums where I go.
1. No 4 users is not particularly high. Most forums have people banned. Take a look at The Escapist forums for instance and try to find a single thread that doesn't have someone banned on it. :p Furthermore Political Prisoners isn't even a real ban. They can post anywhere else in the forum, they just can't post in the forum that brings out the worst in them.
2. The examples you give weren't even perma-bans. In fact they were punishments for abusing HLP's broken permissions system during the upgrade to give themselves image sigs and lasted all of 2 days. Before I gave you those stats I looked up the actual numbers (something only an admin can do easily).
Now, about High Max, I've yet to see the reason why he was banned. He was a bit quick to anger, but in my experience he was just as quick to calm down. Maybe he wasn't the brightest member out there, but I still don't know why he was outright banned.
High Max was a massive disruptive influence on the forum. No matter the subject he would always steer the conversation round to discussions about his belief that he West was morally bankrupt while the Orient was good and pure. He would then condescendingly argue with anyone who disagreed with that view completely derailing the topic. This (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=63229.0) is a great example of why he was banned. In one thread he asks for heavier moderation, claims he is a model forumite, posts a long, off-topic steam of conciousness type post, gets into a flame war and then deletes all his posts on the subject making the thread incomprehensible.
There are more examples but he wiped almost all of his posts after being monkeyed and was then banned.
Shall I point out that he was monkeyed at least 3 times (that are mentioned in the admin forum, it's undoubtedly a lot more) and warned repeatedly. We put up with this sort of behaviour from him for years! So it's not like he was banned for nothing. It a long-term pattern of abuse that got him banned.
About Liberator, again, not the brightest member, but I'm still under the impression he got prisoned just because he was right-winger. I mean, yes, he was stubborn, and he couldn't articulate a reasonable argument even if his life depended on it, but I feel, based on my experience here, that If he would have been a left-winger, there would have been more tolerance for him. Note that I'm not saying this because I liked him, since he seemed to have a really bad opinion about Latin Americans, almost bordering on xenophobia.
Actually Kosh has been very left wing for the most part and you can see how close he's teetering on the brink of getting banned (admittedly non-perm at the moment). Iamzack is another example of a left winger who has had trouble with the admins.
Liberator was banned, not for his opinions, but for his inability to actually debate. He'd post something that would get everyone seething, get replied to, ignore the replies and just post something else. If this behaviour is intentional you'd call it trolling. In Liberator it may have not been intentional but it was just as disruptive. He was told several times how to avoid being a problem and he completely ignored it, continuing the same pattern of behaviour.
After repeated temp bans it was simply made permanent because it was too much trouble to clean up after him.
Charismatic?
Banned for a week for trolling the Leslie Nielson RIP thread. Wasn't permanent.
Trashman, as far as I know, was prisoned because he gratuitously insulted another member whom he was having a heated argument with. I remember reading those particular posts long ago. I have no objection against this sanction.
It wasn't just that. That was simply one in a long string of offences. Telling someone to kill themselves (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=62618.msg1239942#msg1239942) because they disagreed with him wasn't even the last straw. I forget what finally got him banned but it was more of the same.
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I've been on this forum since I was a young teenager and held Dominionist (Hard core Christian conservative) beliefs from my father. Over the years I've flipped over to the other extreme, where I favor less social control and more socialist policies. Two fairly extreme viewpoints.
I've never felt like the admins or mods have been biased against me. (Except maybe Nuke XD)
On the other hand, I felt like the attempt to "moderate" the discussion of the shooting of the Representative was downright overbearing, and stifled, rather than helped the discussion, at least at first.
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Airing of grievances time? Airing of grievances time
Dear HLP, you're too goddamned serious. Chill out a bit. It often feels like you're just looking for something to be mad about. Also, people seem to be rarely given the benefit of the doubt. I.e. someone makes a mistake, says something wrong, what-have-you and then everyone jumps on them immediately assuming they're a moron and don't know what they're talking about. We're all brothers in FS fandom, we should not be enemies. Be excellent to each other. Oh and don't say "but redsniper, that's the internet! Toughen up and deal." No! We're better than that.
Which brings me to...
Overall I think HLP is doing all right and haven't had much issue with the way things are moderated. I kinda miss when we were allowed to talk about piracy as long as no links were posted, but I can understand why that's been cracked down upon. But anyhow, HLP is a good internet. Let's try and keep it that way by not being pricks to each other.
Oh, and all the #hard-light OPs should be mod candidates if we're seriously considering replacement mods.
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I'm.... fairly certain that most of the IRC OPs are already mods or admins.
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Well... yeah I guess so. I was mostly thinking about Herra and Axem there.
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Alright, I'll check this topic again in a week or two. Have fun, and thank you for hearing.
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i think one of the big problems is that the debates happen on general discussion. gd is essentially the troll lounge. which means that every troll is free to completely wreck any debate that happens there. i think debates kinda need to be on another board specifically for debate, moderated by people who are familiar with the art of debate. if only to make it easier to ban the trolls. aside from that i see debaters completely hijack a thread and skullthump anyone else who just wants to post their opinion. i see this happen a lot:
somone posts a news article and gives their opinion about it
someone gives a conflicting opinion
somone trolls
a debate forms and goes back and fourth
somone posts an opinion
the debaters demand sources, or evidence backing up that opinion
somone trolls
poster of opinion states that it was just his opinion
somone trolls
flamewar
more trolling
debate is anything but "general discussion" and deserves its own board. first of all it keeps the trolls out, second of all it would encourage fair debate, it would enforce the rules of debate (making debates more civilized and promoting proper sourcing), it would provide a place to dump debates when they take over threads in gd, and it would free up people who have opinions from having to explain themselves.
another thing that bothers me is that moderators dont seem to have any power over any users that may be causing problems, we might be able to lock threads, or move them, or split them. but we cant really take any action against anyone to say "hey! your being an asshat! shape up or ship out!". simply giving us the option to temp ban people for up to 24 hours would allow us to say "dont **** with the moderators!" to anyone being a total dick. i mean seriously, idle threats are hardly a useful moderation tool.
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If you moved debates to their own board, GD would be EMPTY. See that's another thing mods, could you let the silly threads live just a little longer? Please? They're a rare ray of sunshine amidst the constant ****storms and rage in this board.
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Yes I agree with this but for some reason noooooo we can't have fun on red and black forums of serious posting
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another thing that bothers me is that moderators dont seem to have any power over any users that may be causing problems, we might be able to lock threads, or move them, or split them. but we cant really take any action against anyone to say "hey! your being an asshat! shape up or ship out!". simply giving us the option to temp ban people for up to 24 hours would allow us to say "dont **** with the moderators!" to anyone being a total dick. i mean seriously, idle threats are hardly a useful moderation tool.
Giving you all of all people the option to 24 tempban does not seem wise. :nervous:
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If you moved debates to their own board, GD would be EMPTY. See that's another thing mods, could you let the silly threads live just a little longer? Please? They're a rare ray of sunshine amidst the constant ****storms and rage in this board.
i have already posted my reasoning for why debate deserves its own board. people who want to debate need somewhere to debate that is quiet and doesnt have a bunch of loose opinions and senseless banter flying around. and likewise people who do not wish to debate need to be allowed to express their opinions in a more casual manor. throwing it all together means more cluttered debates, and a greater chances that the thread will derail.
as for silly threads, i dont mind them, at least until i see 50 of them pop up on the same day. people need to realize just because someone does something childish that everyone has to. i usually file such lockings under "cleaning up". really i cant remember the last time i locked a thread that really needed to be locked, and the lock wasnt reversed within hours. i remember when i complained that people were abusing the report to moderator feature, and what happened? at least 4 people who should have known better decided to abuse the feature. i would have really liked to give those people a 1 hour ban, just as a way to say "im watching you". i would rather target individuals for moderation than the entire swath of individuals by locking a thread that has had maybe one or two posters post something stupid. if you let us moderate the troll we wont have to lock the thread.
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Honestly, I wouldn't mind seeing a trial run of a debate board, I was just saying that to complain about how it seems all we have here now are debate threads. :p
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I would stand vehemently against further attempts to split up GD. I don't see why a "General Discussion" board can't have debate, or "discussion" in it. If you remove debate from the board, then what's left in it? "What are you listening to?" threads?
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I would stand vehemently against further attempts to split up GD. I don't see why a "General Discussion" board can't have debate, or "discussion" in it. If you remove debate from the board, then what's left in it? "What are you listening to?" threads?
W-H-I-Y-L?
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So GD will become essentially encapsulated in two threads?
I know that's an exaggeration. But I disagree with the total compartmentalization of all discussion. The point of General Discussion is that it's general, it's a nice central point to go to whenever you want to post something.
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What about a Politics Discussion board? Many of the hotly debated issues are politics-related. Other topics, like computers, women, science, nonpolitical news could remain on GenDisc.
That means just one new board.
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I don't see how allowing politics threads on the same forum as computers and women threads disrupts either discussion.
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I realize that my 2 cents worth is actually worth about half that if someone feels generous...but I gotta go with UT on this one. I don't post here much, but I do read here. People also post science news here, especially technical and astronomical. Will they each get a forum for only those topics? What about a separate forum for posts asking about a video card, monitor, complete system? I realize that this is a fairly extreme train of thought, but, once you open a door in a hurricane, it's tough to close again.
Realistically we could be looking at a board for Politics, a board for debates, a board for religeon, a board for general silliness, and General discussion as the catchall for everything else. I just think that it Hard Light is a forum for the building of games, and everything off that topic belongs in GD. This is first and foremost a Freespace site, we have just branched out to begin including other moddable games. Still a forum for the building of games we love.
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For a brief period there was, indeed, a specific debate forum. It was the Meeting Hall. It got re-merged back into General Discussion during the controversy about board shuffling.
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Having a discussion forum wouldn't necessarily leave GD empty, there are plenty of "Hey look at this funny/cool link" type posts. The big problem is the increased moderation involved. When does a funny post become a debate? The Turkish Porn thread for instance was posted cause it was funny, not to start a debate.
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If somebody DID want to start a real debate over a topic that was posted for lulz, wouldn't they be able to start a thread on the debate forum about it? That'd keep the "turkey for dinner" and "debate" separate.
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Yeah but debates rarely start that way on here. They tend to grow organically. Someone says something they feel is fairly mild and someone disagrees with it and tells them that they are wrong.
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You're right, I DID sound overly optimistic. :P
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Yeah but debates rarely start that way on here. They tend to grow organically. Someone says something they feel is fairly mild and someone disagrees with it and tells them that they are wrong.
It sounds to me like what's needed is better moderation (not more, better) of those discussions.
Not everything can be solved by compartmentalizing it and letting it do it's own thing. Having a general discussion forum that actually allows general discussion of difficult topics as well as all the usual "haha look at this cat" is one of the best parts about this community.
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if debate is going to remain on gd, then it might be useful to be able to temp ban, or have timed locks that expire after a set time. thread gets to hot, then i just temp lock it and give time for people's heads to cool. likewise if somone is being disruptive to the debate, a short temp ban is a good way to knock some sense into people. im not sure what the forum software is capable of, so its just ideas. just being able to flag somone as a trouble maker for all to see would be enough to get them to listen to their moderators.
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My own personal feeling is that, rather than having a board where people can lose self control, instead, people could learn self-control, but that's just me.
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I like the idea of temp locks actually. That might work but you'd need to lock for more than a day to make sure you'd caught everyone. After all some people only check once a day and still manage to get into arguments. They might not even notice that the thread had been locked.
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My own personal feeling is that, rather than having a board where people can lose self control, instead, people could learn self-control, but that's just me.
I'd second this.