Hard Light Productions Forums
Site Management => Site Support / Feedback => Topic started by: Mobius on February 18, 2014, 08:49:31 am
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So I was browsing some random thread and I read the post of a community member that once had a mission file attached to it. Obviously, the attachment was no longer available and the classic phrase [attachment deleted by ninja] was showing up. I said to myself, mkay, you can't expect a file to stay there for that long, at some point it must be deleted.
Then I wondered, why? HLP is one big site and already stores a number of files used by project developers. It has admins who have done many great things in terms of coding and managing a forum, and also has a huge and productive fanbase that would love to have an additional tool for uploads and downloads. In poor words, the question is: why doesn't HLP have a downloads section, and how hard it would be to create one? One such section of the site would be extremely useful, as it would allow community members to post working pictures, mission files and even ship models on a place where they know they can be stored and viewed whenever is necessary, and it would also serve as a backup archive should sites like FreeSpaceMods experience problems.
I'm pretty sure the possibility of using HLP as a huge mod/file archive must have been considered as an option at some point in HLP's history, given the specific nature of this site, and I wonder why this can't be done now. If this poses a problem in terms of management, ok, but if it is a matter of money, I'm pretty sure there'd be community members (one is right here, writing this post) willing to donate in order to turn HLP into a major hub for mod downloads and uploads alike, and also the perfect place where to upload temporary files.
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1. Hosting large files from same server that hosts these websites would consume bandwidth. In worst-case scenario resulting in unreasonably slow browsing experience. This server only has 10Mbit pipe. Most home internet connections have much faster download speeds than 10Mbit.
2. Forum attachments are strictly controlled by size and file type restrictions to avoid above scenarios as well as malicious use. Any such download section would need active and extensive oversight to guarantee people are not uploading malicious or illegal content.
3. Those files would be needed to be backed up through same 10Mbit pipe since there is no backup service in internal network. This would pretty much guarantee everyone abysmal site access for the duration of backup downloads.
4. Limited hard drive space. HLP server's HDD has filled up at least once in the past, even though that was because log rotation had malfunctioned. But if log files can fill up the space, so then can uploaded files.
5. Getting more than one server with more bandwidth and storage capacity costs money.
6. Internet has plenty of decent file download services.
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Yeah, what Fury said. HLP is intended for collaboration and coordination, not file hosting.
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It's awfully redundant to have to say this, but exchanging files is an integral part of collaboration and coordination, and having to do it through other avenues takes time away from said collaboration and coordination, and in inevitable cases where people forget to do it through other avenues, having the files suddenly disappear very effectively hinders said collaboration and coordination.
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Fury, as I was trying to say at the beginning money is not an insourmontable obstacle as long as the sum that is required doesn't go beyond the "affordability" line. It mostly depends on that, and how much the community wants this to happen.
I mean, even if we need some 1,000$ per year, isn't that roughly the equivalent of 1-2 dollars per each active member of Hard Light? Also note that most people would surely donate much more than that.
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It's awfully redundant to have to say this, but exchanging files is an integral part of collaboration and coordination, and having to do it through other avenues takes time away from said collaboration and coordination, and in inevitable cases where people forget to do it through other avenues, having the files suddenly disappear very effectively hinders said collaboration and coordination.
That's why we offer FTP hosting for projects based on HLP. But we can't open that up to the general public.
Also note that most people would surely donate much more than that.
I'm very interested to see the donation analysis you performed to reach this conclusion.
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It's awfully redundant to have to say this, but exchanging files is an integral part of collaboration and coordination, and having to do it through other avenues takes time away from said collaboration and coordination, and in inevitable cases where people forget to do it through other avenues, having the files suddenly disappear very effectively hinders said collaboration and coordination.
This is what most projects use a code repository for. Subversion, git, etc, there are more than a few low cost to free services out there. :)
Also to consider is copyright. Granted, most of what is done here is 100% free of this concern, but there are a few things that are fan made content based on existing IP. I've had to turn away a few project requests on my svn due to this.
Check back a bit ago and see what happened with ModDB and them pulling one of the more prominent projects here over the worry of copyright claims...
Unfortunately, this is a very real thing we have to watch for and do what we can to prevent from even coming up. I know I don't have the resources to defend myself from a copyright claim, regardless of the validity of it.
Yes, it sucks big time. :(
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Also note that most people would surely donate much more than that.
I'm very interested to see the donation analysis you performed to reach this conclusion.
Tangentially related, but I'm actually curious to see a breakdown of HLP"s income and expenditures. How much does it cost to run HLP, and how much of HLP's money comes from where? I can't imagine we're in any amount of financial trouble considering that no one's mentioned it, but judging by what I'm seeing in this thread it doesn't seem like HLP would be able to grow if it needed to.
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but judging by what I'm seeing in this thread it doesn't seem like HLP would be able to grow if it needed to.
Ignoring financial situation completely, there are few other things that needs to happen first before HLP can grow and not collapse under its own unmanageable weight.
1) Technically skilled and trustworthy people in the community who have enough free time and dedication to take active technical administrative role. This ranges from extensive linux server know-how to web design (html, css, php, javascript, sql). The last time we recruited tech admins, there really weren't many takers. I practically had to persuade Zacam and rev_posix (or rather just Zacam, who brought rev_posix with him) to take over my role as tech admin when I resigned. There were only two other candidates. One was completely unknown with no history in HLP and the other was constant lurker in #hard-light who I wouldn't trust further than I can throw 20 kg rock.
2) Community administrators who don't need tech skills, but are diplomatic smooth talkers who take role in communicating with people and moderating forums, wiki and whatnot. This community manager role is for handling people and project relations and communication. These community managers don't take troll baits and don't get themselves carried out in arguments. Likewise enough free time and dedication is required. This would really help out the admins with tech skills to better focus their time spent on administrative duties. This is practically same role as regular admins had before HLP moved away from GameSpy.
3) Administration that is willing to actively recruit people to fill gaps in their current ranks. More than one person is required to cover each skillset because no matter how much we want it, nobody can predict what happens in their lives but we can be certain that HLP still requires attention. There is a limit one person with a job and family can do and let's face it, most of us aren't in their teens any more. Currently HLP does not have enough administrators covering all skillsets, which makes it difficult to maintain HLP as it is now. Then why don't the admins ask for help? Beats me. They're probably afraid to get yet another admin who is practically dead weight or don't want to hurt an administrator's feelings who has worked hard for many years by recruiting someone else for same role. Either way, I've said this past half-a-decade and I'm getting pretty tired of it myself, but HLP administration needs reality check, pronto. The way HLP has been going is not sustainable and no amount of money will fix that. Unless we're talking about large enough sums to actually hire professionals.
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I'm very interested to see the donation analysis you performed to reach this conclusion.
HLP has always been completely secretive and black-boxish about its financials. AFAIK*, nobody except Sandwich knows how much we receive, from where, or how much we pay, so that "donation analysis" has always been impossible. Bit harsh to get up Mobius like that about analysis that he could never do because the data is kept hidden.
Fury: You seem to make similar statements fairly frequently, but I'm not sure how valid they are. HLP has 13 years of success proving how sustainable it is. If the technical hurden of administration currently falls on too few shoulders, then that's a problem, sure, but I'm confident that people like Zacam and rev_posix would say something if they didn't feel they could handle it. I also happen to think that the forums and especially the wiki are moderated pretty well as they are, occasional issues and disagreements notwithstanding (they're inevitable, but fortunately rare on HLP).
*If I'm wrong about Sambo being the only one, that doesn't change the fact that data is still kept broadly away from the community as a whole. I know I've asked for it before and gotten nowhere.
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3) Administration that is willing to actively recruit people to fill gaps in their current ranks. More than one person is required to cover each skillset because no matter how much we want it, nobody can predict what happens in their lives but we can be certain that HLP still requires attention. There is a limit one person with a job and family can do and let's face it, most of us aren't in their teens any more. Currently HLP does not have enough administrators covering all skillsets, which makes it difficult to maintain HLP as it is now. Then why don't the admins ask for help? Beats me. They're probably afraid to get yet another admin who is practically dead weight or don't want to hurt an administrator's feelings who has worked hard for many years by recruiting someone else for same role. Either way, I've said this past half-a-decade and I'm getting pretty tired of it myself, but HLP administration needs reality check, pronto. The way HLP has been going is not sustainable and no amount of money will fix that. Unless we're talking about large enough sums to actually hire professionals.
Sorry but that last one is complete and utter bull****. I'm sure most of the admins on here would be happy to recruit other admins to bolster our ranks and allow us to do other stuff. I know I certainly would. The big problem is that as you said in the other two points, there isn't anyone technically qualified who is also trustworthy enough to take on the role. Even if we found such a person, they'd probably be too busy with their real life and projects on HLP to be able to spend much time on HLP.
I'm quite amazed that having outlined the problem so well in the last two points you then decided to descend into frothing insanity to find another reason for it.
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I'm sorry what? Are you presuming
1) To know every single person visiting HLP.
2) To know skills of every single person visiting HLP.
3) To know free time every single person visiting HLP has.
4) Keep track of all of these over the span of several years?
I'd like to know what magic you are using.
People change and so does their skills as well as free time. Several years is more than enough time for people to gain new skills or improve existing ones. Several years is more than enough time for life to change in terms of available free time. Several years is also more than enough time for new people to come to HLP or old ones leave.
Trying to recruit new administrators and failing to find suitable people is different from not even trying. That's the problem, you're not even trying. Tech administrators aside, you haven't even tried to look for web designers which is what would be needed to get that bloody mainpage finished in less than two decades, or fix/upgrade/re-do templates/themes.
There is definitely insanity here, but it's not coming from me.
Fury: You seem to make similar statements fairly frequently, but I'm not sure how valid they are. HLP has 13 years of success proving how sustainable it is. If the technical hurden of administration currently falls on too few shoulders, then that's a problem, sure, but I'm confident that people like Zacam and rev_posix would say something if they didn't feel they could handle it. I also happen to think that the forums and especially the wiki are moderated pretty well as they are, occasional issues and disagreements notwithstanding (they're inevitable, but fortunately rare on HLP).
HLP administrators traditionally do not let public know much about what is happening in the background. The public knows only what they visibly see but that's not the whole story.
Both Zacam and rev_posix have managed to keep most of the HLP up and running, despite of semi-frequent downtimes but that is hardly their fault. They're just making the best of less than ideal situation. Much bigger problem is absence and inactivity of Sandwich. Goodwill and respect towards Sandwich does not magically mean much needed work gets done. He's either busy with his own life or as it stands, been ill lately. HLP would need another web designer with html/css/php/javascript skills. Something HLP has never recruited for in the past as far as I am aware. And ideally, we could have used another web designer half a decade ago at least.
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I tell you what, we'll use this thread as an example. Let's see who steps forward. Bear in mind we do need people we can trust. I wouldn't make Ironforge an admin no matter what he said his skills were. :p
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I suggest making and announcement or a highlight to attract more potential candidates. This is important.
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On the subject of no suitable candidates, hypothetically, would niffiwan (hope you don't mind me saying it niffiwan) do as an Admin?
He's very nice, knows his way around mantis, frequently helps people with technical issues, spends lots of time here...
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On the subject of no suitable candidates, hypothetically, would niffiwan (hope you don't mind me saying it niffiwan) do as an Admin?
He's very nice, knows his way around mantis, frequently helps people with technical issues, spends lots of time here...
But does he know how to administrate a server? Does he have the technical experience necessary to maintain and if necessary upgrade the software running on this server? Does he know how to build a maintainable website?
Being nice is not an adequate qualification for the job. Knowing how to use Mantis, or how to help people with their FSO problems, or writing code for FSO aren't adequate qualifications either. The skills we're looking for are rather specific, and they're not generally relevant to FSO modding (thus someone who has these skills is unlikely to have communicated said fact here on the boards).
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I tell you what, we'll use this thread as an example. Let's see who steps forward. Bear in mind we do need people we can trust. I wouldn't make Ironforge an admin no matter what he said his skills were. :p
If you are serious about it, don't underplay it. Make a proper recruitment announcement to gather as much attention as possible and stress that it's actually real recruitment and not about proving a point.
would niffiwan (hope you don't mind me saying it niffiwan) do as an Admin?
People should come forward on their own, though you can always nudge them towards a good cause.
Being nice is not an adequate qualification for the job. Knowing how to use Mantis, or how to help people with their FSO problems, or writing code for FSO aren't adequate qualifications either. The skills we're looking for are rather specific, and they're not generally relevant to FSO modding (thus someone who has these skills is unlikely to have communicated said fact here on the boards).
You're forgetting community admins who take care of people and projects. It's equally important job as then tech admins can handle tech problems and not use their time on people. At the moment this is not a priority though, but it will be if HLP ever grows.
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You're forgetting community admins who take care of people and projects. It's equally important job as then tech admins can handle tech problems and not use their time on people. At the moment this is not a priority though, but it will be if HLP ever grows.
Oh, you mean Mods. We have quite a few of those. Unless you have some criteria for "community admin" that mods don't already take care of.
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You're forgetting community admins who take care of people and projects. It's equally important job as then tech admins can handle tech problems and not use their time on people. At the moment this is not a priority though, but it will be if HLP ever grows.
Oh, you mean Mods. We have quite a few of those. Unless you have some criteria for "community admin" that mods don't already take care of.
I had wondered about that myself, that sounded like global mods do that job.
Anyway, it is as Fury says, if this is to be done seriously, rather than some little throwaway post tucked away in this little topic in Site Support that most people aren't going to see, a proper, detailed post breaking down what the admins are looking for and what you'll be expected to be responsible for should be posted in a seperate topic.
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Oh, you mean Mods. We have quite a few of those. Unless you have some criteria for "community admin" that mods don't already take care of.
No, public relations and communication with individuals and projects is what community admins do. Administrators job is not only about fixing **** when things break, but communicate with people and projects to ensure their needs are fulfilled as well as figure out how to improve services. Community admins also keep their eyes on everyday activity and stay on top of things. Basically community admins handle all non-tech tasks in administration. Moderators take the load off from community admins the same way community admins take the load off from tech admins.
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So you're in effect proposing a 'middle step' from mod to admin to.... do the mod's job except a little more involved? You're losing me in exactly why this is necessary.
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Is it really so hard to figure out why it is necessary? Forget moderation for a while. Being an administrator is a lot more than moderating posts and fixing broken ****. People tend to often forget that, sadly.
As you should already be aware, people possessing adequate technical skills are hard to come by, yet are critical in keeping a community operational. Thus we should all do them a favor and not expect these same people to handle everything from technical tasks to mundane tasks.
This is where community admins come into the picture. It is far easier to find dedicated, level headed and reasonable people. than it is finding people with these same qualities plus required technical skills. They handle all these mundane non-technical tasks. Freeing tech admins from the necessity of attending the community in non-technical matters and allowing them to focus their time on improving technical side of things when no things are broken. You know, wouldn't it be great to actually improve the services provided or introduce new services rather than keeping status quo year after year?
Both tech and community admins are a necessity to provide a functional, well provided community. Even one admin dedicated for the task of being a community admin can really help out all the other technically oriented admins. How many community admins are needed is directly proportional to size of the community obviously. HLP would get by with just one or two, always good to have redundancy in times of absence, even if not strictly necessary.
Community admins are not moderators.
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Fury is making some excellent points and suggestions here.
I'm one of the people that would like to see constant improvement being made to HLP, instead we have had years of status quo and admins who only seem to actually do something if it involves the projects they are personally involved with. Getting a community admin who is actually involved with the community and has actually played some of the campaigns&mods would be great. Candidate suggestion: Axem. Just take a look at his newsletters to see how fitting the position would be.
And while we are on the subject of improving HLP. The home page, the thing most new people will probably get to see once they visit HLP, is pretty bad. I get that the forum is the main focus of the site but the home page as it is now seems to serve very little purpose. Compare it to how http://www.wcsaga.com/ looks. I'd definitely give the cake to wcsaga in terms of presentation, readability and first impression.
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And while we are on the subject of improving HLP. The home page, the thing most new people will probably get to see once they visit HLP, is pretty bad. I get that the forum is the main focus of the site but the home page as it is now seems to serve very little purpose. Compare it to how http://www.wcsaga.com/ looks. I'd definitely give the cake to wcsaga in terms of presentation, readability and first impression.
Which is why I used Sandwich as an example earlier. He's had an ongoing project of introducing a new mainpage with plenty of dynamic content for years, so many years in fact that I've completely lost count. And which is again why I said HLP should have recruited at least one more web designer half a decade ago.
Relying on one person no matter who that person is, is simply asking for trouble. Now don't get me wrong. I like Sandwich as a person and he's been a great asset to the community, but the sooner he and other admins wake up to the reality that he alone isn't going to cut it, the sooner we'll start seeing improvements around here.
I can't remember the admins have ever specifically recruited for a web designer. While Karajorma liked to insist there aren't anyone capable, without trying you won't find any.
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Axem should be an admin, no question. He's far and away the biggest producer of community content and tutorials.
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I tell you what, we'll use this thread as an example. Let's see who steps forward. Bear in mind we do need people we can trust. I wouldn't make Ironforge an admin no matter what he said his skills were. :p
This is an incredibly two-faced statement considering the number of people who even bother reading Site Support on a regular basis.
If you're really going to go with such a blatant display of tokenism and claim it proves your point, then the only thing this thread will prove is that you don't want to try. It's literally at the bottom of the page.
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(http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk264/mjnmixael/Private/ImageBin_zpse1874120.jpg~original)
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(http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk264/mjnmixael/Private/ImageBin_zpse1874120.jpg~original)
QFT
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I'd absolutely be behind Axem for admin. He certainly does enough around her to warrant the title "unofficially" if nothing else.
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I'd have no problem with making Axem an admin. He's already doing a lot of the jobs that Fury has suggested a community admin should be doing by working on the newsletter etc. I have no idea if he wants the job. But I'll ask him.
This is an incredibly two-faced statement considering the number of people who even bother reading Site Support on a regular basis.
Actually, I suspect anyone who should be an admin probably reads Site Support anyway though. Stands to reason that anyone interested in the day to day running of the site already comes here. I'd prefer to see who volunteers on this thread before I throw it open. Consider it an example of trying to hire from within rather than posting a job listing.
Axem should be an admin, no question. He's far and away the biggest producer of community content and tutorials.
Bear in mind there is a risk there. Ask yourself who had that role before Axem.
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Bear in mind there is a risk there. Ask yourself who had that role before Axem.
Hm?
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Take a look at the tech help, FREDding and modding forums from 2003 - 2006. See which names you see on almost every thread. Check who has made tutorials from that era.
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Actually, I suspect anyone who should be an admin probably reads Site Support anyway though. Stands to reason that anyone interested in the day to day running of the site already comes here. I'd prefer to see who volunteers on this thread before I throw it open. Consider it an example of trying to hire from within rather than posting a job listing.
If you're going to bring up vetting admins for trustworthiness as such a big deal I think it's relevant to ask whether admins should just be grandfathered in with no review, even after well over a decade of the site and its community evolving.
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Take a look at the tech help, FREDding and modding forums from 2003 - 2006. See which names you see on almost every thread. Check who has made tutorials from that era.
It was you? (You're the last post on a lot of threads.)
What is the risk?
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Take a look at the tech help, FREDding and modding forums from 2003 - 2006. See which names you see on almost every thread. Check who has made tutorials from that era.
It was you? (You're the last post on a lot of threads.)
What is the risk?
I don't see this supposed risk either.
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Spending time as an admin = less time doing the stuff that you actually used to do on HLP.
I'm not going to blame the fact I definitely do less community work than I used to on the fact I became an admin, but the dates do match up somewhat. I certainly never did any major work on my FAQ after becoming an admin. I spend a lot less time playing FS2, modding or coding than I used to. Hell, the plan for this morning was to spend time on a multiplayer mission for Diaspora but I've spent the last hour or so reading HLP instead (a significant portion of which was dealing with this thread).
Whenever someone decides to make a dick of themselves on a thread or someone reports a thread, I then have to read the entire thread so that I can make an informed comment when it comes to moderation. This happens even if you don't see any resulting action.
Like I said, I'm happy to see Axem as an admin but there is a good chance that by raising him up as one, you're going to significantly reduce his output for the community. So for those of you who suggested him, please think about that next time you decide to instigate some forum drama. :p
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Spending time as an admin = less time doing the stuff that you actually used to do on HLP.
I actually thought of this when the Axem suggestion came up. That would it impact on his stuff, and would he want that to happen?
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Its so nice to be loved by all. But if my work output falls, you'll all be to blame!
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Its so nice to be loved by all. But if my work output falls, you'll all be to blame!
You won't be able to blame me. :p
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As you should already be aware, people possessing adequate technical skills are hard to come by, yet are critical in keeping a community operational. Thus we should all do them a favor and not expect these same people to handle everything from technical tasks to mundane tasks.
Isn't this exactly what we have already, though? Half the admins aren't really involved in the technical side of things, so they're free to focus on the community side of things. Now you can make the argument that the current setup we have isn't accomplishing that goal right now, and that's fair, but I don't think there's any need to invent new positions just for the sake of doing so. We're not exactly an operation on the scale of SomethingAwful here.
And by no means do I want to disparage your past contributions, but for the past few years you've done an awful lot of complaining about what needs fixing or improving around here, without offering much in the way of concrete assistance to achieve it. It's all well and good to point out, "Software X needs updating," or "Security hole Y needs patching," but hasn't there been any point when you stopped and asked yourself, hey, maybe I could jump in and lend a bit of a hand?
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On the subject of no suitable candidates, hypothetically, would niffiwan (hope you don't mind me saying it niffiwan) do as an Admin?
He's very nice, knows his way around mantis, frequently helps people with technical issues, spends lots of time here...
But does he know how to administrate a server? Does he have the technical experience necessary to maintain and if necessary upgrade the software running on this server? Does he know how to build a maintainable website?
Funny thing is (& despite Lorric not knowing it) my day job is *nix systems administration :D (well, at least it was before I took on this managing sysadmins (aka cat herding) role...)
I can't help with website design, but I have administered Tru64 (eviiiiiiiil), Solaris, and RHEL/Centos for many years. I reckon I could manage a Debian based system as well without many dramas. I have also administered apache, mysql, postgresql, Progress and Oracle RDBMs (although I am not a specialist DBA). So in short, I'm confident I have the technical skills. What I lack is the time - I doubt I could be a full time (tech) admin, but I could assist Zacam & rev_posix. Having said that, I don't believe that HLP really needs those skills right now, I'm getting the feeling that other areas are the ones that need extra staff.
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Well, I was pretty damn close to finding you a suitable admin. :pimp:
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And by no means do I want to disparage your past contributions, but for the past few years you've done an awful lot of complaining about what needs fixing or improving around here, without offering much in the way of concrete assistance to achieve it. It's all well and good to point out, "Software X needs updating," or "Security hole Y needs patching," but hasn't there been any point when you stopped and asked yourself, hey, maybe I could jump in and lend a bit of a hand?
I served you folks as an administrator for FIVE years. I would like to think I've done my part.
Having said that, I don't believe that HLP really needs those skills right now, I'm getting the feeling that other areas are the ones that need extra staff.
Trust me, if you're half as good as your post indicates, your insights and assistance would be really valuable.
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Hell, even as a backup for when Rev and Zacam aren't available it would be worth considering him.
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Just as I would support Axem, I would also very much support niffiwan :yes:
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I <3 me some Niffiwan... but if being an Admin really does suck that much away from actual projects... then I'd ask Niffiwan to decline! He's one of the few coders that actually takes requests anymore... selfishly, us modders need him!
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It is completely valid concern, especially for those who have been really productive. But what happens if all admins would take that stance? Worrying their personal investments towards projects and the projects themselves instead of the community as a whole? We'd end up with dysfunctional community, one that most likely wouldn't be productive. We can compare all the modders and coders to cooks who cook food. Then they serve their food on plates to happy customers. What happens when the plates are unwashed or broken? The customers wouldn't be so happy.
The dedicated and talented people have to juggle both somehow, without getting burned out in the process. And I have to stress this, try to recognize warning signs of getting burned out. Noticing it too late can lead to all kinds of problems. I know for having experienced it first hand.
Traditionally administrators are few in numbers and it works in most communities. HLP however, is not like most communities and perhaps that kind of tradition should be broken. What happens when you have more administrators for each required role than is needed? Assuming responsibilities are shared evenly and fairly, then that means each admin has that much more time to spend on everything else. That would practically fix all the problems already mentioned in this topic and address the concern of any single administrator getting swamped with administrator duties and not having time for much else.
Of course that means suitable people need to step up in even larger numbers that what has been discussed so far.
If Karajorma is too busy with administrator duties despite Goober and everyone else being there, how many community admins are needed to keep everyone's workload small enough to let them stay as productive individuals in the community as well? Four, five? Assuming Axem gets promoted, then we could certainly consider upping the ante and get two more community admins, making that three new community admins total. That should do the trick and let these people have fun outside administrator duties. The rest is up to each admin's personality and ability to resist their overbearing responsibility and dedication to keep an eye out for anything and everything and instead allow themselves personal time.
Tech admins are trickier to find, but it certainly would help if niffiwan joins and anyone else capable should step up too. Zacam has been really busy with his personal life recently, so really, any dependable help is well received.
And anyway, this idea about breaking the unwritten rule about having few admins is just my idea. My saying it doesn't make it so, the rest is up to the administrators. The idea is sound though.
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I'm very interested to see the donation analysis you performed to reach this conclusion.
HLP has always been completely secretive and black-boxish about its financials. AFAIK*, nobody except Sandwich knows how much we receive, from where, or how much we pay, so that "donation analysis" has always been impossible. Bit harsh to get up Mobius like that about analysis that he could never do because the data is kept hidden.
You missed the point of my comment. Mobius made a completely conjectural statement, and treated it as if it were self-evident. Since Mobius does not have access to donation data, he should have made it clear it was wishful thinking, or he should have restated it as a question.
"People will surely donate more than $1000 per year" is no different from "SCP will surely implement feature X", or "FREDders will surely flock to join my campaign".
As for the actual financial analysis, I don't think we keep that deliberately secret. If you've gotten nowhere by asking in the past, was it because you were stonewalled, or because the topic died due to inactivity?
Between member donations and the old ModDB award for BTRL, we are financially in good standing. The breakdown between roles is a little rickety, though... it has been discussed in the admin forum before and it wouldn't hurt to discuss it again.
And by no means do I want to disparage your past contributions, but for the past few years you've done an awful lot of complaining about what needs fixing or improving around here, without offering much in the way of concrete assistance to achieve it. It's all well and good to point out, "Software X needs updating," or "Security hole Y needs patching," but hasn't there been any point when you stopped and asked yourself, hey, maybe I could jump in and lend a bit of a hand?
Fury may be a curmudgeon, but I value his insight. Whenever he raises a point about software or security patches or whatever, I either look into it myself or I ping Zacam and rev_posix for input and/or advice. So his points are heard, even if we may not take the direction he is agitating for. For example, he has complained about the forum not being patched, but I've spoken to Zacam and he has the situation under control. The fact that this forum has so many custom mods and code changes means that the automatic upgrade doesn't always work, so Zacam has often merged the security fix into the code by hand. Since he didn't use the updater, the version number doesn't change, but the fix has nevertheless been integrated.
Other points, such as member registration, are just due to not being privy to behind-the-scenes stuff. Yes, we may have a few registrants trapped by the spam filter, but that same filter keeps out thousands of bot registrations per day.
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For example, he has complained about the forum not being patched, but I've spoken to Zacam and he has the situation under control. The fact that this forum has so many custom mods and code changes means that the automatic upgrade doesn't always work, so Zacam has often merged the security fix into the code by hand. Since he didn't use the updater, the version number doesn't change, but the fix has nevertheless been integrated.
Naturally that is something I don't have the means to verify. Automatic upgrades have never worked properly because of the mods, I used to patch the forums by hand but I also changed the version number. Unfortunately that doesn't extend to the theme files which have been upgraded on several occasions since the SMF 2.0 release candidate, on which current theme is based on.
Meaning we totally need that web designer to upgrade both MediaWiki and SMF themes to fix browser rendering issues and most of all, avoid any potential exploits lurking in these aged themes.
Also, SMF's way of handling mods really does suck and I totally feel bad for suggesting SMF back when vB was migrated to SMF, prior to leaving GameSpy. From what I have researched, some forums implement mods through hooks. Meaning you have to modify forum source files very little or none at all to implement mods.
Yes, we may have a few registrants trapped by the spam filter, but that same filter keeps out thousands of bot registrations per day.
I believe I mentioned this in another topic, I've noticed in several websites that host multiple discussion forums live demos that SMF demos are filled with spam posts, whereas other forums have very little or none. I do not know why this is, do spammers target SMF specifically for some reason or are other forums simply more resistant to automated spam.
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I believe I mentioned this in another topic, I've noticed in several websites that host multiple discussion forums live demos that SMF demos are filled with spam posts, whereas other forums have very little or none. I do not know why this is, do spammers target SMF specifically for some reason or are other forums simply more resistant to automated spam.
*shrug* Back when we first switched to SMF, one of its advantages was that it was almost never targeted for spam, whereas vBulletin got spammed all the time. I guess SMF's popularity since then has meant that spammers have adjusted their tactics.
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If Karajorma is too busy with administrator duties despite Goober and everyone else being there, how many community admins are needed to keep everyone's workload small enough to let them stay as productive individuals in the community as well? Four, five? Assuming Axem gets promoted, then we could certainly consider upping the ante and get two more community admins, making that three new community admins total. That should do the trick and let these people have fun outside administrator duties. The rest is up to each admin's personality and ability to resist their overbearing responsibility and dedication to keep an eye out for anything and everything and instead allow themselves personal time.
Things are a little more active than usual today, partly because of this topic, and partly cause of other things that have come to a head, but I've been on HLP for over 2 hours at this point and all I've done is deal with admin, and inter-project issues. I've done very little that actually has to do with Diaspora, let alone MindGames, TBP or SCP coding. Having other admins would not have reduced that workload one iota.
The problem isn't the number of community admins so much as the outright hostility the community has to any sort of change. Any attempt to change things around here is usually met with furious disagreement about why it's a bad idea from people who want to argue and absolute indifference to any reasonable suggestions. Whenever these is a discussion about improving HLP in any way it swiftly devolves into an argument and then nothing gets done. Until something is done about that, HLP isn't going to grow at all.
You won't be able to blame me. :p
Actually I suspect he will. Your posts in particular take up an inordinate amount of my time as you get reported more often than the next two users put together.
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That's not really my impression. Attempts to change things that reached a fairly broad consensus have been met with furious silence.
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absolute indifference to any reasonable suggestions.
I don't see how I'm disagreeing with you.
Let me give you an example. The discussion on licensing (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=83954.0). What we got was an argument rather than a discussion. In the end I suggested what I still believe to be a reasonable compromise - that we, as a community, say that unless there is an explicit licence we treat all new content as unusable and bug the content creator for an explicit licence.
The result - absolutely **** all change.
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Wasn't there an implied creative commons licence blanketing the community? Or was that the community competition?
I think, (speaking) as a mere mod, that mods, admins, global admins and (never heard the term until this thread) "community admins" tend to overlap really. Mods have less capability granted, but admins tend to do all the moderation before I even notice It tbh. Not due to ineptitude or lethargy, simple order of living. I forget how long I have had the mod powah. But we all have priority shifts in life.
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That was just for the mod competition. It certainly doesn't cover everything else here on HLP.
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Mods have less capability granted, but admins tend to do all the moderation before I even notice It tbh.
I'd say that's part of the problem why people think community admins are moderators and why admins have less time for other stuff than they should. Admins should be able to trust moderators to handle moderation and not do that themselves at every opportunity. Forums (including SMF) have warning system for a reason, moderators can use it to issue warnings and prevent misbehaving people from posting. There shouldn't be much reason for administrators to interfere.
HLP has additional moderation overhead in the form of Monkeys, political prisoners and what have you. There is simple solution, allow global moderators to add and remove people from these membergroups at will, like project leads can do with their project's membergroup. Thus removing that responsibility from admins. Only when situation calls for actual (temporary or permanent) ban should admin be involved.
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Thanks for your kind words of support guys :)
I understand what Mjn is saying about admin work sucking up time, that was essentially my original concern. Having said that (and as Fury has pointed out) extra admins help decrease the workload on everyone, and provide extra capacity to easily cope when Real Life gets busy. Therefore I am happy to volunteer to assist Zacam & rev_posix (and anyone else that steps up) with the tech admin work.
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3. Those files would be needed to be backed up through same 10Mbit pipe since there is no backup service in internal network.
Why? :confused:
HLP has always been completely secretive and black-boxish about its financials. AFAIK*, nobody except Sandwich knows how much we receive, from where, or how much we pay, so that "donation analysis" has always been impossible.
And that information should remain undisclosed. When people know what finances are available they might start making demands on where it should go...
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Like, uh, where? :confused: It would probably be a piddling sum by any standard.
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3. Those files would be needed to be backed up through same 10Mbit pipe since there is no backup service in internal network.
Why? :confused:
Do you mean:
Why do the files need to be backed up?
(Because people would expect a repository of mods to survive hardware failure/software failure/human accidents)
Or
Why is there no backup service on the internal network?
(Because that'd mean renting a 2nd server from the existing hosting company at probably a significant cost)
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Like, uh, where? :confused: It would probably be a piddling sum by any standard.
Hosting, outsourcing, competition marketing, etc - There's no point debating where :p since I'm not privy to the budget or how its allocated and what takes priority.
How are you able to determine what sum it is and measure it to any standard? We have no information except possibly this...
Between member donations and the old ModDB award for BTRL, we are financially in good standing.
Sounds like an accounting term to me Goober. No red ink aye ;) good to hear.
Why is there no backup service on the internal network?
(Because that'd mean renting a 2nd server from the existing hosting company at probably a significant cost)
Why rent a server that is only used intermittently for backup and restore purposes - It should be part of their internal network. I'm baffled as to why a hosting company wouldn't provide it
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I'm baffled as to why a hosting company wouldn't provide it
Some do, some don't. In most cases they cost extra.
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Like, uh, where? :confused: It would probably be a piddling sum by any standard.
Hosting, outsourcing, competition marketing, etc - There's no point debating where :p since I'm not privy to the budget or how its allocated and what takes priority.
How are you able to determine what sum it is and measure it to any standard? We have no information except possibly this...
I don't think transparent accounting would lead to any particular problems because I don't think money is relevant to most modding activities on HLP. Speaking as a member of an active team the two things we care about are hosting costs (already handled by this money) and, rarely, hiring voice actors.
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I don't think transparent accounting would lead to any particular problems because I don't think money is relevant to most modding activities on HLP.
I can agree with that on the majority :nod: Although I must say its fantastic to see prizes being awarded to people for contributing works to FreeSpace :D
Speaking as a member of an active team the two things we care about are hosting costs (already handled by this money) and, rarely, hiring voice actors.
You've hired voice actors... WOW. Is there a list somewhere?
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Whenever someone decides to make a dick of themselves on a thread or someone reports a thread, I then have to read the entire thread so that I can make an informed comment when it comes to moderation. This happens even if you don't see any resulting action.
Flogging a dead horse here, but why in blazes are administrators doing this?
This mundane stuff is why other communities have lesser administrators - what HLP designates moderators - who deal explicitly with forum use issues. I was a member of one community where my entire role was forum use and responding to help calls on the game servers.
If you have an administration team composed of people with specialized skillsets, you should not be tying up those skillsets (and their free time) with things that anyone with half an ounce of good judgement should be more than capable of dealing with.
If anything, this comment by kara indicates that HLP needs to evict its administrators from dealing with forum behavioural issues and designate more moderators. And moderation is pretty bloody simple (no offense to the current moderators), especially if moderators are forbidden from moderating where they are actively arguing with someone. Hell, if this is such an issue, designate another dozen moderators, leave their decisions supervised somewhat by admins, and put the admins to work only on the things that need their attention.
Hell, even if its just reactive - if it's a matter of the Off-Topic boards and responding to "Report Person" threads, I'd bloody well volunteer, limited as my time sometimes is. Twenty additional moderators, each with limited time, still ease the admin burden better than no additional moderators with a glut of free time.
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Flogging a dead horse here, but why in blazes are administrators doing this?
You have to remember that HLP has not set up an effective moderation detail; they are not able to issue ROs or bans or political prisonering or to eject someone from a thread in progress. This is actually desired, for some reason.
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MP-Ryan, thank you. That has been exactly the point I've been trying to get across.
NGTM-1R, SMF moderation center settings should be tweakable to allow moderators to do more without admin intervention. Global moderators can also be allowed to add and remove people from political prisoners and other similar groups. It's just a question of whether the admins are willing to relinquish day-to-day moderation to moderators instead of handling it themselves.
Seriously though, administrators so far have handled moderation with such involvement that HLP might just as well not have any moderators outside of project boards.
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NGTM-1R, SMF moderation center settings should be tweakable to allow moderators to do more without admin intervention.
Since it was apparently lost, my point was that yes, it can.
But this has never apparently been seen as a desirable thing to do, because it's never been discussed or carried out.
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That's just karajorma's personal level of attention, though. He might want to keep doing that, or he might want to re-calibrate. Speaking personally, whenever I see a moderation report, it's usually the case that Mongoose, Scotty, Black Wolf, or one of the other mods has commented. With three (or more) pairs of eyes on the same report, a consensus emerges pretty quickly.
I don't feel that HLP lacks an effective moderation detail; we have a fair number of board-specific moderators and global moderators. (People may not be aware that I was the one who first set up the board-specific moderation in the first place.) We've got a lot of good people in place.
What we may not be doing effectively, though, is empowering the moderators to take action. There have been instances where a moderator report has a consensus that a certain action should be taken (such as closing or splitting a thread), but nobody stepped up to take that action. Recently it was revealed that moderators were not aware that the warning system, to which they have access, is capable of effectively banning someone if their warning level is boosted above 25%. And moderators may not feel they need to address issues if they know that karajorma will be along in a few hours to investigate the entire issue.
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If anything, this comment by kara indicates that HLP needs to evict its administrators from dealing with forum behavioural issues and designate more moderators. And moderation is pretty bloody simple (no offense to the current moderators), especially if moderators are forbidden from moderating where they are actively arguing with someone. Hell, if this is such an issue, designate another dozen moderators, leave their decisions supervised somewhat by admins, and put the admins to work only on the things that need their attention.
If you believe that moderation on a forum like HLP is simple, you haven't tried moderating on a forum like HLP before. :p Now I'm not against hiring more moderators but right now our moderators are hobbled in what they can actually do due to SMF permissions. Unlike most forums HLP has found it necessary to add a couple of extra punishments. If for instance we banned someone like Darius, then he couldn't access the Blue Planet internal and work on his project might possibly be severely affected. The result is that we have the Hard Light Monkeys group for that. Same goes for political prisoners - A group for people who can act reasonably well on other forums but who can't pass a political discussion without getting into an argument.
The problem is SMF permissions. Moderators currently can't give out those punishments. Nor can they give out proper bans except via the warning system (which is very limited in what it can achieve). Right now we're actually working on giving them that power. But up until now, it's basically been only the admins who can actually give out some the penalties, resulting in moderators who can only say the equivalent of "Wait until your father gets home!" to people who require the specialised punishments. Having more people who can do that won't help in the slightest. And as much as I trust the moderators, If I have to be the one responsible for handing out the ban I'm certainly not going to unless I've read the thread in question myself.
Yes, I'd prefer to have a system where the moderators can do that stuff without involving me. But we currently don't have that system. Like I said, we're already discussing internally how to change that.
To be honest though, I consider this entire thread a great example of one of the biggest problems HLP has when it comes to growth. We have a lot of very opinionated members looking in from the outside telling people how we should be doing our jobs. None of them actually realise the issues involved because we don't discuss that sort of thing in public (and shouldn't because it just gets more opinionated members on their soapboxes about what we should be doing). I consider the situation to be very similar to the SCP's problems in the early days (which still crop up now and then) where everyone and their dog had an opinion on how the source should be updated and kept insisting that the coders fulfil their whims first because it would be easy. Some of them even had programming experience (which generally made them actually worse cause they'd get into big arguments with the coders about WHY it was easy!) The SCP responded this sort of nonsense from coders and non-coders alike by aggressively pointing at the source and saying "You add it then!"
Since the admins and moderators on here obviously don't have that recourse, the result is that whenever changes are suggested we get lots of people complaining that they are bad ideas and no progress even if a good idea comes out of the discussion. I'll point out the licensing thread again as a great example of that. As far as I know, the number of unlicensed assets the community pumps out haven't changed in the slightest as a result.
I'll also point to the change in the forum guidelines as a perfect example of this nonsense, after pages of discussion, everyone decided to dump writing a new set on Zacam - probably one of our busiest admins and ignored the last set I suggested (which included most of the changes everyone had been complaining about on the thread). So I spend hours of my time trying to please the community by understanding their objections to the last suggested guidelines and the end result is no change at all and a continued use of the old, worse forum guidelines. Great work HLP. :yes:
And on this thread we have the same thing, instead of spending my time solving the problem of how to spend less time doing admin stuff instead of moderator stuff by continuing the discussion on the internal and looking at the SMF permissions, I have to spend my time explaining what's wrong with your suggestions on how I can spend less time doing moderator stuff. :p Moderation has never been as much of a time sink as dealing with the fallout from moderation. If you guys wouldn't spend so much time questioning every single decision the admins make, then we'd have more time for actually doing stuff to make HLP grow.
I'm not saying that people should stop pointing out the problems on HLP, it's good to point out the problems, I don't even mind suggestions on how to solve the problems, but if you feel we should automatically do what the community says we should do to fix them, you're as misguided as the idiot who didn't know C++ telling the SCP that his suggested change is easy.
What we may not be doing effectively, though, is empowering the moderators to take action. There have been instances where a moderator report has a consensus that a certain action should be taken (such as closing or splitting a thread), but nobody stepped up to take that action. Recently it was revealed that moderators were not aware that the warning system, to which they have access, is capable of effectively banning someone if their warning level is boosted above 25%. And moderators may not feel they need to address issues if they know that karajorma will be along in a few hours to investigate the entire issue.
I think one problem that came to light when we made Axem an admin is that we basically give people power and don't give them any idea how to use it. I was tempted to write a tutorial on the moderation system for our global mods and one on the membergroups and other SMF issues but it will have to wait for me to have good internet access again (1st of next month).
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Moderation has never been as much of a time sink as dealing with the fallout from moderation. If you guys wouldn't spend so much time questioning every single decision the admins make, then we'd have more time for actually doing stuff to make HLP grow.
This is an excellent point. One of the most annoying trends on HLP recently is when moderation actions themselves get reported. :rolleyes:
I think one problem that came to light when we made Axem an admin is that we basically give people power and don't give them any idea how to use it. I was tempted to write a tutorial on the moderation system for our global mods and one on the membergroups and other SMF issues but it will have to wait for me to have good internet access again (1st of next month).
I was mindful of that myself. I spoke to Axem on IRC and pointed out some functionality in the Administrator Center control panel, but there's a lot more that would be good for him to know. (In fact, he signed off before I could ask him if he wanted to look at another set of controls.)
The Documentation subforum is a useful resource, but it doesn't cover every single thing it should.
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This is an excellent point. One of the most annoying trends on HLP recently is when moderation actions themselves get reported. :rolleyes:
It's actually one of the reasons why I tend to read every report. I get called in to complain about the judgement anyway and it's definitely more objective to have a "I think what we should do is...." opinion before anything is done than to look at a complaint about the moderation and try to form an objective "What I would have done is...." after someone starts complaining about the moderators actions.
And that's before we get to the point that stupid complaints about moderation are actually one of the leading causes of moderators leaving. If there is a legitimate grievance, okay. But if you've been a dick and you've been punished for it, the take home message is "Don't be a dick next time" not "Why don't I report this and try to get the moderator in trouble."
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Because I wasn't being a dick and I just made a joke? (It had a smilie and everything it was super obvious) Then several days later scotty comes in PMS'ing about how I am the biggest rudest dick HLP has ever seen? And then when the thread is locked karajorma comes in just to get the last word in.
If you guys are going to make drama about nothing and use your moderator powers for that, I would strongely argue you guys are being the dicks about this all.
Also, being called a dick for doing nothing that is being dickish, seems report worthy to me. I got a warning one day for calling phantom hoover a jerk when he was being a jerk. Double standards much? Or is 'jerk' such an incredibly terrible word that it alone warants action? Or are moderators somehow empowered to go around calling people names?
Stupid complaints about stupid moderating. Seems valid to me.
If moderators cannot handle being complained about then I say, by all means leave. :blah: But don't go whining about people wanting to defend themselves.
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I was speaking about being a dick and reporting things in general. You aren't the only person to do that. Funny that you took it so personally.
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kara, I've been an administrator in four separate (and large) gaming groups over the last decade-and-a-half (and the reason I'm not still doing it is because I have less personal time to do it these days and it wasn't fair to those communities). No, I have not done moderation on HLP, but I know a thing or two about enforcing forum rules and dealing with misbehaviour... and using an admin panel (or I did 10 years ago :P).
Certainly, it appears there are some technical challenges with the system, but I see no reason why you cannot do what many, many communities do and give your moderators access to the administration systems, but write policy that limits them on which of those systems they are allowed to use. This isn't rocket science.
You fellows are great at explaining how difficult the job is because we don't understand, but frankly you have a number of community members that understand very well and think many of the barriers you're throwing up are self-imposed.
There is absolutely no reason why moderators like Scotty, Mongoose, The E, and Black Wolf (to pick 4) should not be trusted enough to grant them access to the systems they need, even if it comes with access to other systems, so long as you clearly define their roles and responsibilities. To choose an example of my own - I was a moderator/administrator of one gaming site for which I was responsible for forum moderation, and a few things on our gaming servers and ladder system. I did not need access to anything in the admin control panel except those features - but instead of throwing up barriers and micromanaging, the owner of the site/ladder gave me full access to the panel so I could get at the tools I needed, with clear instructions as to what areas I was expected to use and what I was to stay out of. That's trust and responsibility, and there is no reason why, if you trust your team, you should not be able to do the same things here.
The fact that you look at feedback - from people who know a thing or two about what they're saying - as a nuisance rather than suggestions that can be tweaked to the community's needs is a telling demonstration that the administrator team is more interested in knowing what they know than looking at ways to streamline operations to make everyone's job less onerous when those ideas come from elsewhere.
Using the guideline example - a number of us subsequently asked Zacam how things were going, and you're righht, he's busy - so again, why is he doing it? Why isn't the workload being spread out? You have a huge number of relatively responsible forum members here, why aren't you tapping into them? You are massively under-utilizing the resources available to you, given how many of the members of this community are fairly active and care about it, out of what looks at this end like paranoia about spreading out the workload and responsibilities. If you gave more people a hand in running the place, you would simultaneously find them MORE engaged and yourselves with LESS workload.
This is immensely frustrating for everyone. I hear you that there are technical challenges - what a number of us are saying is that there are ways to work around those challenges that would be beneficial overall if you were willing to consider alternatives to your traditional way of thinking when it comes to the administration and moderation challenges on HLP.
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Oh look, the typical Karajorma scumbag way of going about these discussions. This act of your has gotten old so long ago.
Yes so 'funny' I took it personally when you oh so subtly described http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=86804.0 this thread. And then when I call you out on it you go "oh so funny you took it personally but I didn't directly named you did I? I of course mean 'in general'." You are such a weasel. You always type things in such a way that you are implying a lot of things but never directly say them and then can just go "but I didn't say that" after.
But I'm just dying to hear your very wise words of wisdom on the matter of moderators just going about insulting people. Apparantly you seem fine with maintaining that double standard, seeing as you gave me a warning once for calling phantom hoover a jerk when I perceive him being jerkish. But I don't see you giving scotty a warning for him calling me a dick when he perceived me being a 'dick'.
Also first its being promoted that reports should be used. Now that reports are being used its being apparantly found annoying. Could you guys make up your mind already?
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There is absolutely no reason why moderators like Scotty, Mongoose, The E, and Black Wolf (to pick 4) should not be trusted enough to grant them access to the systems they need, even if it comes with access to other systems, so long as you clearly define their roles and responsibilities. To choose an example of my own - I was a moderator/administrator of one gaming site for which I was responsible for forum moderation, and a few things on our gaming servers and ladder system. I did not need access to anything in the admin control panel except those features - but instead of throwing up barriers and micromanaging, the owner of the site/ladder gave me full access to the panel so I could get at the tools I needed, with clear instructions as to what areas I was expected to use and what I was to stay out of. That's trust and responsibility, and there is no reason why, if you trust your team, you should not be able to do the same things here.
The fact that you look at feedback - from people who know a thing or two about what they're saying - as a nuisance rather than suggestions that can be tweaked to the community's needs is a telling demonstration that the administrator team is more interested in knowing what they know than looking at ways to streamline operations to make everyone's job less onerous when those ideas come from elsewhere.
Because goober thinks hlp as a hierarchy where giving someone a moderator/admin position is some kind of promotion to a position of power within this system.
It's not about sensibility but about the idea that giving too many people admin powers would dilute the value of the administrator position. There will be less peons to rule over on this forum about spaceships.
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Oh look, the typical Karajorma scumbag way of going about these discussions. This act of your has gotten old so long ago.
Yes so 'funny' I took it personally when you oh so subtly described http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=86804.0 this thread. And then when I call you out on it you go "oh so funny you took it personally but I didn't directly named you did I? I of course mean 'in general'." You are such a weasel. You always type things in such a way that you are implying a lot of things but never directly say them and then can just go "but I didn't say that" after.
But I'm just dying to hear your very wise words of wisdom on the matter of moderators just going about insulting people. Apparantly you seem fine with maintaining that double standard, seeing as you gave me a warning once for calling phantom hoover a jerk when I perceive him being jerkish. But I don't see you giving scotty a warning for him calling me a dick when he perceived me being a 'dick'.
Also first its being promoted that reports should be used. Now that reports are being used its being apparantly found annoying. Could you guys make up your mind already?
This isn't helpful, but it is illustrative of what happens when frustration boils over.
Moderation and administrative actions are generally going to be criticized. That's part of the job description. Frankly, if you're not being criticized then you're not doing your job. Anyone who doesn't like that reality should probably not be a moderator (this is a play off what I've told new officers in my job, but hey, it's relevant).
On the other hand, those actions should be perceived as reasonable and non-hypocritical. I have to say, I see a claim like Spoon has been warned for calling PH a jerk, and I think "what in the ever-loving hell is the point?"
I get that HLP tries to foster respect and keep personal attacks out of it, but you have a passionate membership who generally are here long term... which means that, unless it's devolving into a flamefest, little spats are exactly that and are probably better ignored. The reason why the admin/mod team takes the flak that kara and spoon are both complaining about from different angles is because the community at large often has trouble with those decisions... and instead of listening to the community at large, or more involvement of the community at large in actively running the place, we've seen a more insular admin/moderation team that if anything is trying to decentralize the decisions and present a united us-vs-them front.
Nothing against any of the admins/mods personally - I wuv you all ;) - but you guys need to drop the barriers between your 'official' actions and your regular participation, and the policing needs to be more community-directed... meaning the community itself needs to be more involved. The best way that my experiences suggest doing that is by engaging much larger numbers of moderators who make judgement calls and are maybe even occasionally wrong active in the broader community as a whole.
If anything, HLP is the perfect example of a community that should absolutely not have a hierarchy of membership and distinction between admins/mods and everyone else. When it comes to the non-technical aspects of the community, isn't the moderation really just a social smack to tell people to quit being douches at the end of the day? It need not be filled with drama.
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Moderation has never been as much of a time sink as dealing with the fallout from moderation. If you guys wouldn't spend so much time questioning every single decision the admins make, then we'd have more time for actually doing stuff to make HLP grow.
This is an excellent point. One of the most annoying trends on HLP recently is when moderation actions themselves get reported. :rolleyes:
You asked for more reports and promised more communication; since you didn't step up on the communication front you leave it to users to reach out and try to figure out why actions were taken. :shrug:
I've resigned myself to the fact that HLP's moderation is generally bad to awful (this isn't the same as saying the moderators and admins are bad to awful) and that a lot of subpar decisions are going to be made. As long as I can keep doing my creative work unimpaired and occasionally get poor calls corrected, I don't feel the need to act too strongly on this, but it is a shame.
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But when we asked for more reports, we didn't ask for posts to get reported because you wanted to get technical troubleshooting done.
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That happened once and I really, really wanted to help the guy. PMing you guys definitely would've been the right call, but - with respect - I think that overenthusiasm for getting coder eyes on a user's debug log is a fine problem to have.
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This thread is perfectly illustrative of pretty much every point I've made.
First we have MP-Ryan saying how we should deal with the moderation issue, despite the fact that I've already said we're discussing it on the internal with the moderators. While there are some great points raised, how about assuming that we are actually listening and are actually doing something rather than simply telling the administration what we should be doing. Shouldn't the fact that we've already made Axem an admin within 2 days of it being raised on this thread lead some of you to believe that action is being taken?
But again, despite having said that things are being done, and that dealing with forum drama takes more time than any other admin duties, I have to come back on the thread to explain yet again that action is being taken.
Then we have Spoon once again refusing to accept any and all moderation whenever he is in the wrong. As a matter of fact I use the phrase "Acting like a dick" to describe the behaviour of a lot of forumites. You'll find that phrase all over the last discussion on moderation. So no, I wasn't actually referring to that incident in particular, although it is a great example of exactly the behaviour I'm on about though.
You asked for more reports and promised more communication; since you didn't step up on the communication front you leave it to users to reach out and try to figure out why actions were taken. :shrug:
Again, we come back to a technical problem there. SMF allows the moderators to read and comment on the report but doesn't offer any simple way to present the consensus back to the person who reported it. This instead means that if the moderators want to report back their conclusions, they are forced to do so in the form of a PM or public post, both of which can spark exactly the kind of unpleasantness Spoon is currently engaged in. Notice that his response is completely based on the fact that I replied to his thread to say that I couldn't see any way of reading his initial post as anything other than rude. i.e his complaint has been read and considered invalid.
The problem is that there are people on HLP who use any excuse to start an argument. And they are often the people doing the reporting. A solution to that issue is to use the Hammer account to report back the results but given how strongly pretty much everyone was against that idea last time it was suggested for punishments, I can't see anyone being on board with it being used to report back.
You've been a global moderator yourself Battuta, so you should be more than aware of the ridiculous level of hostility they face simply for doing their job. You should also be aware of the issues with several of the SMF features.
Like I said, many of the issues raised in this thread are being dealt with already. Acting hostile to the admins and global mods doesn't help get things done though.
Using the guideline example - a number of us subsequently asked Zacam how things were going, and you're righht, he's busy - so again, why is he doing it?
As I pointed out already, I was perfectly happy writing them myself. Yes I could contract the work out, but when I'm already halfway done, why not finish it myself?
Why isn't the workload being spread out? You have a huge number of relatively responsible forum members here, why aren't you tapping into them? You are massively under-utilizing the resources available to you, given how many of the members of this community are fairly active and care about it, out of what looks at this end like paranoia about spreading out the workload and responsibilities. If you gave more people a hand in running the place, you would simultaneously find them MORE engaged and yourselves with LESS workload.
While that sometimes works, sometimes it results in absolutely nothing getting done. How many times has Black Wolf asked for help with the Wiki only to receive a "meh" in response? We already have a collaborative forum effort with a very low entry barrier. And yet it is still neglected a lot more than it should be.
I pointed at the licensing thread as an example because the only action required from forum members there is to complain when something doesn't have a licence, and complaining is obviously something HLP members are great at. And still nothing got done.
It's hardly surprising the opinion forms that often the most progress happens not from collaborative effort but when one individual decides to get off their butt and do something. Axem proved that perfectly with the newsletter and I did it years before him with my FAQ.
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I'm aware, but I think a PM saying 'hey, we're trying to move bug discussion to Mantis' is a lot more useful than locking a thread without explanation and forcing me to go through another admin to get an explanation and a solution to allow work on solving the bug to continue.
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This thread is perfectly illustrative of pretty much every point I've made.
First we have MP-Ryan saying how we should deal with the moderation issue, despite the fact that I've already said we're discussing it on the internal with the moderators. While there are some great points raised, how about assuming that we are actually listening and are actually doing something rather than simply telling the administration what we should be doing. Shouldn't the fact that we've already made Axem an admin within 2 days of it being raised on this thread lead some of you to believe that action is being taken?
I might be more inclined to give the benefit of the doubt and assume you are actually listening and doing something about the various suggestions you have received - which, again, I'll point out are coming from people with actual, tangible, and significant moderation/admin experience (on the non-technical end, at least) - if every response you make wasn't completely dismissive of these suggestions and hostile in tone.
But again, despite having said that things are being done, and that dealing with forum drama takes more time than any other admin duties, I have to come back on the thread to explain yet again that action is being taken.
This right here is the massive hallmark of what I'm saying - when you make feedback sound like nothing but a large and constant nuisance, it is difficult to believe claims that "we are doing something" are credible (if they are made at all, which is a rarity).
I'll say again - HLP is the perfect example of a community where the hierarchy of admins/moderators should be eliminated or significantly reduced to a mere formality, which would significantly reduce the number of complaints and hopefully the atttitude we often see from the administrative team as a whole (I have no problem with anyone individually, I'll reiterate) that is charitably described as "permanently defensive."
Communities thrive where their administration and moderation is open, transparent, and infrequently needed to enforce discipline (because its members actively do it without the need for 'official' action).
As I pointed out already, I was perfectly happy writing them myself. Yes I could contract the work out, but when I'm already halfway done, why not finish it myself?
Why isn't the workload being spread out? You have a huge number of relatively responsible forum members here, why aren't you tapping into them? You are massively under-utilizing the resources available to you, given how many of the members of this community are fairly active and care about it, out of what looks at this end like paranoia about spreading out the workload and responsibilities. If you gave more people a hand in running the place, you would simultaneously find them MORE engaged and yourselves with LESS workload.
While that sometimes works, sometimes it results in absolutely nothing getting done. How many times has Black Wolf asked for help with the Wiki only to receive a "meh" in response? We already have a collaborative forum effort with a very low entry barrier. And yet it is still neglected a lot more than it should be.
OK, but this is the point that Fury and I have been making - if you have people who are best able to spend their time focussed on specialized tasks, why are they doing the generalized duties that - as stated earlier - anyone with half-an-ounce of good judgement can do? Why is your time being taken away from other duties by writing forum guidelines, which we had basically written in the thread already? Why is Black Wolf being sucked away from the wiki (where he needs more help and isn't getting it) to instead de3al with basic moderation?
Distribute the workload efficiently. Instead of asking for more people with specialized skill sets and hoping they may pop out of the woodwork, ask for people with more generalized skillsets and free up the time of those who have the specialized ones in the first place.
Moderation is and always will be a fairly mundane and routine task (and should be, frankly). Don't tie up specialized resources with mundane tasks.
*sigh* The reason I assume you aren't listening is because it appears that you aren't, because you keep mentioning the same barriers which I am suggesting means of circumventing.
Whatever. I've said my piece. Take it or leave it.
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Then we have Spoon once again refusing to accept any and all moderation whenever he is in the wrong. As a matter of fact I use the phrase "Acting like a dick" to describe the behaviour of a lot of forumites. You'll find that phrase all over the last discussion on moderation. So no, I wasn't actually referring to that incident in particular, although it is a great example of exactly the behaviour I'm on about though.
I refuse to accept wrong moderation. Where exactly was I in the wrong again? Making a joke/light hearted jab in rev's direction and getting a angry moderator who is calling me a dick for it? Are you calling this good moderating? Bloody hell I have so many issues with this. The fact that you think that everything forever is always somehow my fault is one of them.
You always have so much bias against me its not even funny.
And this nonsense has gotten me extremely frustrated with HLP over the years. To the point I'm activately saying to myself "man, **** that place. I'm not even going to bother contributing to the wiki or campaign feedback and what not."
This right here is the massive hallmark of what I'm saying - when you make feedback sound like nothing but a large and constant nuisance, it is difficult to believe claims that "we are doing something" are credible (if they are made at all, which is a rarity).
I'll say again - HLP is the perfect example of a community where the hierarchy of admins/moderators should be eliminated or significantly reduced to a mere formality, which would significantly reduce the number of complaints and hopefully the atttitude we often see from the administrative team as a whole (I have no problem with anyone individually, I'll reiterate) that is charitably described as "permanently defensive."
Communities thrive where their administration and moderation is open, transparent, and infrequently needed to enforce discipline (because its members actively do it without the need for 'official' action).
This is so true.
But the people who fancy themselves 'in power' always seem to be so activately opposed to this.
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Then we have Spoon once again refusing to accept any and all moderation whenever he is in the wrong. As a matter of fact I use the phrase "Acting like a dick" to describe the behaviour of a lot of forumites. You'll find that phrase all over the last discussion on moderation. So no, I wasn't actually referring to that incident in particular, although it is a great example of exactly the behaviour I'm on about though.
I refuse to accept wrong moderation. Where exactly was I in the wrong again? Making a joke/light hearted jab in rev's direction and getting a angry moderator who is calling me a dick for it? Are you calling this good moderating? Bloody hell I have so many issues with this. The fact that you think that everything forever is always somehow my fault is one of them.
You always have so much bias against me its not even funny.
Spoon, I know you have issues, but there are some bigger ones at play here that the personal spat you and karajorma may be distracting from in the discussion. No offense, but maybe we could focus on the bigger ones at the moment?
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Spoon, I know you have issues, but there are some bigger ones at play here that the personal spat you and karajorma may be distracting from in the discussion. No offense, but maybe we could focus on the bigger ones at the moment?
Well I could say that I agree with pretty much everything you say. And you are saying it better than I could anyway.
I doubt it will help, cause discussions like this have been done in the past and I havent actually noticed significant change in the way things are handled.
So I guess I'll shut up then. I'm just needlessly winding myself up here.
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I might be more inclined to give the benefit of the doubt and assume you are actually listening and doing something about the various suggestions you have received - which, again, I'll point out are coming from people with actual, tangible, and significant moderation/admin experience (on the non-technical end, at least) - if every response you make wasn't completely dismissive of these suggestions and hostile in tone.
But again, despite having said that things are being done, and that dealing with forum drama takes more time than any other admin duties, I have to come back on the thread to explain yet again that action is being taken.
This right here is the massive hallmark of what I'm saying - when you make feedback sound like nothing but a large and constant nuisance, it is difficult to believe claims that "we are doing something" are credible (if they are made at all, which is a rarity).
I did say that there were some great ideas in there. But like I said, we are discussing the issue on the internal as we speak. Feel free to ask any moderator or admin you'd like if posts on better reporting and giving the moderators more tools aren't already under discussion. But if no one who admins on here says that, we get complaints about how you guys are saying stuff on how to improve HLP and we are ignoring you. If we reply and say that we're already talking about it, you say that you don't believe it.
OK, but this is the point that Fury and I have been making - if you have people who are best able to spend their time focussed on specialized tasks, why are they doing the generalized duties that - as stated earlier - anyone with half-an-ounce of good judgement can do? Why is your time being taken away from other duties by writing forum guidelines, which we had basically written in the thread already? Why is Black Wolf being sucked away from the wiki (where he needs more help and isn't getting it) to instead de3al with basic moderation?
I don't know what specialised skills you think I'm being drawn away from. I'm a community admin same as Axem is. I don't do anything on the backend of HLP and duties such as adding new forums or membergroups are pretty light work. If you refer to coding or FREDding, pretty much everyone else could cite that excuse. I've already said that I'm not against hiring more admins or moderators (I think you'd find that I was the person who suggested promoting both Scotty and Axem to the admin board). But let's have the changes we're discussing internally working before we bring anyone new on board.
I'm aware, but I think a PM saying 'hey, we're trying to move bug discussion to Mantis' is a lot more useful than locking a thread without explanation and forcing me to go through another admin to get an explanation and a solution to allow work on solving the bug to continue.
I don't think that's an unfair point. But it is a single data point and sometimes you really don't know what will set someone off.
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I'll back MP-Ryan's last post, but it feels safest to me to just stay heads-down, work on mods and code, and pretend the motions of policy and moderation are just weather. I value HLP as a creative outlet and I've had excellent experiences with other content creators and with the coders.
I've seen really good calls made by some admins and GMs - when Lorric launched a campaign of PM harassment against The_E and I, Kara and Zacam were responsive. But in general, interacting with the admins and moderation, from low level stuff like thread locks up to major decisions, feels like a black box process. Stuff happens orthogonally to the issue or not at all.
I think a big issue for me is that of climate: HLP is very quick to crack down on people using the word 'idiot', and very slow to crack down on posters who are hostile or disruptive towards content creators and (in the case of GenDisc) substantive topical experts. Spoon faced constant harassment and people writing weird rape fantasies about his characters. We're told to report these so they can be dealt with, but nothing happens, and then we're told the reports are obnoxious. The result is an environment in which tone is ruthlessly policed but actual effect on the forums is mostly ignored. Saying 'asshole' gets you time off; cruising around High Max style driving productive posters insane gets those productive posters time off. It feels perverse and frustrating.
This leads to people like Spoon turning into bittervets. They can't get help from the admins, so they have to deal with hostile posters themselves with the only tools available: harsh language and ignore lists. Then they're condemned for being angry and combative.
I don't think that's an unfair point. But it is a single data point and sometimes you really don't know what will set someone off.
Well as far as single data points go, the same thread had already been locked once by the same admin - I had to put it in for review and get it unlocked. Then when I pointed out it had been erroneously stickied a few weeks later it got locked again, again without any communication or explanation! If there was something wrong with the thread it would've taken one PM to sort out.
This is why mod/admin decisions start to feel like the weather: they happen for no reason and you just kind of have to work around them as best as you can.
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I think a big issue for me is that of climate: HLP is very quick to crack down on people using the word 'idiot', and very slow to crack down on posters who are hostile or disruptive towards content creators and (in the case of GenDisc) substantive topical experts. Spoon faced constant harassment and people writing weird rape fantasies about his characters. We're told to report these so they can be dealt with, but nothing happens, and then we're told the reports are obnoxious. The result is an environment in which tone is ruthlessly policed but actual effect on the forums is mostly ignored. Saying 'asshole' gets you time off; cruising around High Max style driving productive posters insane gets those productive posters time off. It feels perverse and frustrating.
This issue is a big part of my problem with the current system as well. I am unable to adequately respond to areas where I feel moderation is necessary because there are no rules that I can point to to build a case. Everything has to be resolved in tortuous discussions with people who are not as involved in the day-to-day discussions that happen here as I (as a GM) think I have to be.
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I really do not want to lose E as a GM and I'm afraid that will happen if this continues. He is a huge contributor to the SCP and a constant asset to tech support. If the forum's climate is not right for him then I think something's wrong with the forum climate.
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Why do you think I'm so annoyed that the new forum guidelines were trashed and nothing was put in their place?
Those guidelines were specifically designed to stop people like High Max and Lorric. To make sure that the actual effect someone has on a forum is more important than the way they say it.
So yes I'm pretty ****ing annoyed that people are complaining about the way moderation is handled on these forums when I not only saw the problem months ago but was actively hamstrung from implementing a solution by the same people who are now complaining about it.
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But - I thought - that last thread ended on broad consensus and an agreement that something would be drawn up internally and presented? :confused: I took 6 months off afterwards, but my impression was that everyone agreed something should be done and then the process stalled internally because Zacam was busy.
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But - I thought - that last thread ended on broad consensus and an agreement that something would be drawn up internally and presented? :confused: I took 6 months off afterwards, but my impression was that everyone agreed something should be done and then the process stalled internally because Zacam was busy.
Indeed, this is my entire recollection as well. Now the only record I can find is this subsequent thread: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=85191.0
However, the community basically re-wrote the guidelines in the discussion thread, and then it was assigned to Zacam, and then it has apparently disappeared into a black hole.
There were significant and reasonable objections to the original guideline re-write, but there was some significant consensus from the people who were involved in the subsequent discussion that karajorma is currently complaining about... so what gives?
EDIT: I suck at thread finding. Not only did I find the thread, I found the last rule revision that had some consensus (which, it turns out, was mine!) http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=84758.msg1693444#msg1693444
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I want those rules.
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Yep, that's kind of my point. We didn't get the original ones on the thread, we didn't get the ones I was writing based on the comments on that thread (I only posted the first one which MP-Ryan expanded upon, not realising it was only the first guideline) and we didn't get MP-Ryan's either.
Instead we all got a confusing and mismatched hodgepodge of the old rules being implemented with the new ideas on how to moderate when even the very first (flawed) set of guidelines would be enough to deal with people like Lorric.
So whenever I want to do something about him, I just get comments about how he hasn't broken any rules.
So if I'm annoyed, it's because while everyone was willing to queue up to trash the first set of guidelines, not a single person disagreed with the idea that Zacam should write the new guidelines, not a single person said "Hang on a second, Karajorma and MP-Ryan seem to be doing a good job, why don't we leave it to them?"
And now I'm hearing complaints from the same people who didn't speak up then, that Zacam shouldn't have the task of writing new guidelines and that we should be getting people from outside to help with tasks.
Of course I'm pissed off.
But if MP-Ryan is willing, I'm perfectly happy to trash out a new set of guidelines with him this weekend.
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This place is such a cluster**** of pride and tradition. I fully expect to be ignored or jumped on.. but whatever, I don't really care.
Those in power only ever want to keep or gain more power and rarely do they allow it to be diluted by adding more to the inner circle. And that's what HLP's moderation is built on, levels of super sektret inner circles. Show me a thread like this and I'll find you a post from a GM or Admin talking about how us regular forumites don't know the crap they deal with because we aren't special enough. I watched certain Admins and GMs for a long time give "weasel-like" reasoning/justifications while throwing their title out and asking whomever to just deal with it. And they're right because they are on the inner circle. And, as said here, the mods don't like moderation to be reported! Good job, guys.
Whatever. If there's anything I've learned in my time here, it's that things don't really ever change. Thread after thread on Site Support is evidence of that. Adding Axem as an Admin does not change the very core moderation culture which is the root of the problem. You know what real change might look like? Throw out Admins as moderators of any kind. Admins keep the forum running from a technical standpoint. Let the GMs do the moderation... But we all know we can't do anything that might remove a supporting pedestal to the special Admin Avatars.
Battuta hit the nail on the head when he compared HLP's moderation to the weather. It comes and goes and you stay inside or put on a coat when necessary.
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So if I'm annoyed, it's because while everyone was willing to queue up to trash the first set of guidelines, not a single person disagreed with the idea that Zacam should write the new guidelines, not a single person said "Hang on a second, Karajorma and MP-Ryan seem to be doing a good job, why don't we leave it to them?"
To be fair, when Goober suggested it and Zacam showed willingness to do it, I, at least, assumed that that was the decision of the admin/mod team and was owed some deference as a result - input was given, input was listened to, task was assigned, progress was imminent.
Of course, it has since become apparent that that was not at all the case and the ruleset that had been worked upon in the thread should have at least been adopted as a temporary measure while more comprehensive reform was underway.
But this just adds fuel to the fire - admins roles and tasks have not been clearly defined, it seems, to themselves OR the community at large (kara, I legitimately had no idea you weren't involved in the tech side). had this been abundantly clear, then I would have argued then, as I have been now, that tasks should be assigned to those most able to do them as a function of both time and skillset.
The major issue that I think most of us have with how things are run around here is the complete lack of transparency when there is no need for secrecy. Everyone could point out that Lorric was being a problem, but it was improper to discuss that outside the admin internal. Why? Like I keep emphasizing, this is one of the communities most fit to self-policing of any I've been a part of. And by self-policing I don't mean giving admin rights to everyone, but I do mean that admins/mods should be making their informal and formal actions transparently within the expectations of the broader community.
That guideline in the thread would cover every possible justification for both the community and the admin/mod team saying "enough" to the disruptive elements and dealing with them immediately. No, Lorric hadn't broken any particular rule, but virtually everyone on this bloody board could tell you that his behaviour was destructive and disruptive, and the issue could have been dealt with much sooner. As it is, the fellow really doesn't have a clue what he's doing that gets everyone so perturbed; if the shackles came off the community at large and the mod team intervened early, directly, and with the minimum force required (there I go channeling work again) then it would not have reached this point... or if it did, we could at least say we've tried everything. As it stands, can anyone here REALLY say that?
Frankly, the admin board should only exist to discuss internal, technical issues with the site management. For that, limited access by trusted community members is appropriate.
All the design, rules, disciplinary measures, disruption, etc should be part of a board that can at least be publicly read, if not necessarily commented on. There is no need for policing of posting behaviour, etc to be a secretive thing, and the fact that it is - and is done by a very small percentage of community members - is perhaps one of the biggest reasons you get pushback. If moderation were a community activity enforced technically by moderators and admins, it would be a much less controversial thing. And that has to be preciptated by both a rulset change and a governance structure change.
I see mjn.mixael made a post very much along these lines as I wrote this one.
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But if MP-Ryan is willing, I'm perfectly happy to trash out a new set of guidelines with him this weekend.
I don't think it needs to wait or be done in private. I'll start a new thread based on what we had before; then the rest of the membership can comment on what they like or don't like... and you can split out any posts that don't do those things.
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I don't suppose it will suprise anyone if I say that I highly agree with the things mjn.mixael said (and battuta&mp-ryan for that matter)
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I think a big issue for me is that of climate: HLP is very quick to crack down on people using the word 'idiot', and very slow to crack down on posters who are hostile or disruptive towards content creators and (in the case of GenDisc) substantive topical experts. Spoon faced constant harassment and people writing weird rape fantasies about his characters. We're told to report these so they can be dealt with, but nothing happens, and then we're told the reports are obnoxious. The result is an environment in which tone is ruthlessly policed but actual effect on the forums is mostly ignored. Saying 'asshole' gets you time off; cruising around High Max style driving productive posters insane gets those productive posters time off. It feels perverse and frustrating.
This leads to people like Spoon turning into bittervets. They can't get help from the admins, so they have to deal with hostile posters themselves with the only tools available: harsh language and ignore lists. Then they're condemned for being angry and combative.
Re: the situation in the WoD folder, I'll repeat again for the record that we received absolutely no reports about what was going on in there. That folder is one of the few on here that I'm not caught up with on a daily basis (and the only reason for that is because I'm so far behind in playing things that I haven't picked up the campaign yet), and I personally had no way of knowing what was going on in there without some type of communication from the people observing it. That was an incident that was just begging to be reported, and I would have been happy to jump into it if I'd known about it, but there it is. Again, I'm sorry that fell through as it did, and I'll do my level best to make sure that something like it doesn't happen again.
More in general, when it comes to posters like High Max or Lorric or the like, obviously the hopefully-soon-forthcoming revised guidelines would more explicitly lay out the policy pertaining to these sorts of users. In lieu of that, though, I think the issue has been historically that much of the community been unable or unwilling to just flat-out ignore individuals that are viewed as disruptive or just generally stupid. There's very much a "Someone is WRONG on the Internet!" philosophy at work here; lord knows I'm not immune to it either. But sometimes you have to step back and realize that the only reason many of these sorts of posts become disruptions in the first place is because other people go out of their way to respond to them, and then things escalate until the whole topic is a flaming mess. In some of those cases, treating the problem individual's words as so much whitespace between actual topic posts would have served everyone much better.
Even more in general, I'm admittedly a bit puzzled when I see people asking for a more moderation-by-group approach, even if it's more read-only. I've never heard of that sort of approach working elsewhere...hell, to be frank, I've never so much as seen it in all the communities I've been a part of. I agree that there should be more transparency when it comes to moderation, particularly in displaying when certain actions have been taken, and explaining decisions that may run contrary to a reporter's thoughts. However, I think laying bare the whole process of moderation deliberation is just asking for even more of an explosion of drama...I mean, there's a reason why international diplomacy relies so much on conversations held in confidence. And no, this has nothing to do with my desire for any sort of "power": I mean goddamn, if this is what's meant by grabbing power, then I sure as hell grabbed onto the wrong thing. I think there's a happy medium to be had here, but I don't think the answer is straight-up mob rule.
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Even more in general, I'm admittedly a bit puzzled when I see people asking for a more moderation-by-group approach, even if it's more read-only. I've never heard of that sort of approach working elsewhere...hell, to be frank, I've never so much as seen it in all the communities I've been a part of. I agree that there should be more transparency when it comes to moderation, particularly in displaying when certain actions have been taken, and explaining decisions that may run contrary to a reporter's thoughts. However, I think laying bare the whole process of moderation deliberation is just asking for even more of an explosion of drama...I mean, there's a reason why international diplomacy relies so much on conversations held in confidence. And no, this has nothing to do with my desire for any sort of "power": I mean goddamn, if this is what's meant by grabbing power, then I sure as hell grabbed onto the wrong thing. I think there's a happy medium to be had here, but I don't think the answer is straight-up mob rule.
Mob rule isn't desirable, but the arena I've seen this work is in the Appeals section of gaming server forums. It's where I've used it. The report and appeals sections are both open-access to view; reports is open-access to post. The appeals sections allowed players to post their appeal, and the moderators would then locked the thread so only the moderation team could respond to it, but everyone could see it.
I could see a hybrid of this working here - not for the informal moderation (warnings and such) which I hope will become more common, but for the more formal stuff like monkeying, political prisoners, bans, etc - a tracking of incidents and rationale behind responses.
I also hope that the new guidelines lead to more action being taken toward individuals, and less thread locking. Thread locking is something that has always annoyed me because it seems like abandoning discussion in lieu of dealing with problem children.
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I'd definitely like to see less thread locks and more warnings for the problem children.
Given the open hostility shown on this thread towards the moderators though, I have very little interest in open moderation discussions. I think that would just make people more likely to claim vendettas.
Show me a thread like this and I'll find you a post from a GM or Admin talking about how us regular forumites don't know the crap they deal with because we aren't special enough.
How much are you willing to bet on that? Cause whatever you want to put down, I'm willing to match.
About the only thing you'll find is a complaint from me about a particular user in the same post that I suggested we make Axem an admin.
In other words, well before this thread was in full swing.
And, as said here, the mods don't like moderation to be reported! Good job, guys.
Also incorrect. What irks the moderators is people abusing the reporting system because they were moderated.
A legitimate grievance is fine (Notice I said I agreed with Battuta about his issues with the FRED crashes thread), but what annoys is when someone gets justifiable moderated and instantly jumps on the moderator in an attempt to get even.
Until you've seen the moderation logs, you'll find it rather hard to believe how often that happens
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How much are you willing to bet on that? Cause whatever you want to put down, I'm willing to match.
Until you've seen the moderation logs, you'll find it rather hard to believe how often that happens
:lol:
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stopitstopitstopit
Part of the reason that nothing ever changes around here - and in this karajorma is right - is because those advocating for it have an unfortunate tendency to often shoot themselves in the foot.
Do you really want leaky feet? Think of the nice white carpets you'll ruin. Plus ammunition isn't cheap. Don't shoot feet, shoot down bad ideas and promote better ones.
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Even more in general, I'm admittedly a bit puzzled when I see people asking for a more moderation-by-group approach, even if it's more read-only. I've never heard of that sort of approach working elsewhere...hell, to be frank, I've never so much as seen it in all the communities I've been a part of. I agree that there should be more transparency when it comes to moderation, particularly in displaying when certain actions have been taken, and explaining decisions that may run contrary to a reporter's thoughts. However, I think laying bare the whole process of moderation deliberation is just asking for even more of an explosion of drama...I mean, there's a reason why international diplomacy relies so much on conversations held in confidence. And no, this has nothing to do with my desire for any sort of "power": I mean goddamn, if this is what's meant by grabbing power, then I sure as hell grabbed onto the wrong thing. I think there's a happy medium to be had here, but I don't think the answer is straight-up mob rule.
Mob rule isn't desirable, but the arena I've seen this work is in the Appeals section of gaming server forums. It's where I've used it. The report and appeals sections are both open-access to view; reports is open-access to post. The appeals sections allowed players to post their appeal, and the moderators would then locked the thread so only the moderation team could respond to it, but everyone could see it.
I could see something like that being potentially workable, though maybe with some slight personal reservations about how it'd work in practice here. There is one fairly-large forum I'm active on where the mods have set up a "Hey Mod!" thread, where they'll publicly answer questions about people's own bans. Even there, though, it's considered a completely-optional service as far as mod participation goes.
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Shooting yourself in the foot, or proving a point? Cause I think mjn.mixael just proved his point :p
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Shooting yourself in the foot, or proving a point? Cause I think mjn.mixael just proved his point :p
Sure, but does it help the discussion or hinder by entrenching positions and barriers?
This does not to be an us-vs-them issue, no matter how hard certain individuals in both camps seem to be trying to make it that way at times.
Everybody cool down and go comment on the rule changes. That's where some extra input would be most helpful.
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Even more in general, I'm admittedly a bit puzzled when I see people asking for a more moderation-by-group approach, even if it's more read-only. I've never heard of that sort of approach working elsewhere...hell, to be frank, I've never so much as seen it in all the communities I've been a part of. I agree that there should be more transparency when it comes to moderation, particularly in displaying when certain actions have been taken, and explaining decisions that may run contrary to a reporter's thoughts. However, I think laying bare the whole process of moderation deliberation is just asking for even more of an explosion of drama...I mean, there's a reason why international diplomacy relies so much on conversations held in confidence. And no, this has nothing to do with my desire for any sort of "power": I mean goddamn, if this is what's meant by grabbing power, then I sure as hell grabbed onto the wrong thing. I think there's a happy medium to be had here, but I don't think the answer is straight-up mob rule.
Mob rule isn't desirable, but the arena I've seen this work is in the Appeals section of gaming server forums. It's where I've used it. The report and appeals sections are both open-access to view; reports is open-access to post. The appeals sections allowed players to post their appeal, and the moderators would then locked the thread so only the moderation team could respond to it, but everyone could see it.
I could see something like that being potentially workable, though maybe with some slight personal reservations about how it'd work in practice here. There is one fairly-large forum I'm active on where the mods have set up a "Hey Mod!" thread, where they'll publicly answer questions about people's own bans. Even there, though, it's considered a completely-optional service as far as mod participation goes.
I remember a "Thread of shame" was proposed in the previous rules revision which would show punitive actions taken and the reasons behind it. Would that be enough?
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More in general, when it comes to posters like High Max or Lorric or the like, obviously the hopefully-soon-forthcoming revised guidelines would more explicitly lay out the policy pertaining to these sorts of users. In lieu of that, though, I think the issue has been historically that much of the community been unable or unwilling to just flat-out ignore individuals that are viewed as disruptive or just generally stupid. There's very much a "Someone is WRONG on the Internet!" philosophy at work here; lord knows I'm not immune to it either. But sometimes you have to step back and realize that the only reason many of these sorts of posts become disruptions in the first place is because other people go out of their way to respond to them, and then things escalate until the whole topic is a flaming mess. In some of those cases, treating the problem individual's words as so much whitespace between actual topic posts would have served everyone much better.
This is a discussion board. You can't say that the solution to disruptive users is for constructive users to ditch their constructive habits (respond to points and discuss them with material and expertise). That's a bad incentive structure - you want to REWARD posters who bring a lot to the table.
Even more in general, I'm admittedly a bit puzzled when I see people asking for a more moderation-by-group approach, even if it's more read-only.
I'd just like a little more moderation by communication. I bring a lot to this community, I'm invested in it, and I'm probably one of its strongest advocates in terms of bringing in new talent and exposure. But I don't feel like I have any idea why decisions are made, especially regarding my content. Don't get me wrong - most of the time things run smoothly! The admins and mods aren't Inept Death Itself. But I'm excited to have Axem on board and I'm excited to see where this round of discussion might lead things.
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As I pointed out before the big issue with moderation is how to report back on what decisions were made without sparking more trouble.
I fully understand that pressing the report button can feel like you're flicking breadcrumbs into a black hole but reporting back on decisions is similarly unpleasant for the moderating team.
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As I pointed out before the big issue with moderation is how to report back on what decisions were made without sparking more trouble.
I fully understand that pressing the report button can feel like you're flicking breadcrumbs into a black hole but reporting back on decisions is similarly unpleasant for the moderating team.
Reporting back on decisions has never, in the entire time I've been here, been something that moderation and administration has attempted to do on a regular basis. I don't think you have the sample size to make this statement, and once you develop one, if it's still true, I don't think you'll be able to sustain an argument that the majority of the pain on the report-back end is unearned by the reporter's poor .
One of the great things about Zacam, E, and even Battuta during the early GM days, is that they are always able to explain a decision in such a way that you understand their reasoning and it does not come across as arrogant or faux-humble or blatantly trying to make themselves look good, or any of the other ways people have set themselves up to bring pushback on yourselves. Other admins and GMs have had issues with this down the years; Fury was smart enough to recognize that he was terrible at this and remove himself for that reason among others.
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Reporting back on decisions has never, in the entire time I've been here, been something that moderation and administration has attempted to do on a regular basis. I don't think you have the sample size to make this statement, and once you develop one, if it's still true, I don't think you'll be able to sustain an argument that the majority of the pain on the report-back end is unearned by the reporter's poor .
Actually most of the admins used to explain the reasons for moderation right on the thread. Issues started when we moved over to getting reports and getting a consensus rather than summarily dispensing justice on the thread itself.
This was actually one of the main reasons for using the Hammer of Justice account, in order to give that feedback, and present it as the unified opinion of the moderation team. But everyone hated that idea and for the reasons I already mentioned, nothing was put in its place.
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The Hammer of Justice was a terrible idea because it makes the moderation dialogue even more opaque and detached. One of the major problems with how you handled both Lorric and Nakura was that if you weren't a moderator you had no meaningful feedback or input on the situation because the deliberation was all taking place behind closed doors, and meanwhile you still had to put up with their **** in every thread on GenDisc.
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The Hammer of Justice was a terrible idea because it makes the moderation dialogue even more opaque and detached. One of the major problems with how you handled both Lorric and Nakura was that if you weren't a moderator you had no meaningful feedback or input on the situation because the deliberation was all taking place behind closed doors, and meanwhile you still had to put up with their **** in every thread on GenDisc.
This is true.
Honestly, what I'd like to see is a subforum, perhaps of Site Support, in which disciplinary action is explained in a read-only format (this is used in legal settings in the form of registries or repositories) when an action is not entirely obvious.
Hopefully, new guidelines and a shift in moderator thinking will lead to fewer thread locks and more action taken toward people who are being problem children, which means that mods will largely be able to respond to a person in place and tell them to exit thread or line of discussion, making a post in another section unnecessary... but for things like bans/monkey/political prisoner action where the action is taken on a cumulative basis, it would hurt to have a read only post go up explaining what happened, how that person ran afoul of the guidelines, and what the resulting response is. Something simple like:
User: MP-Ryan
Issue: Repeatedly question the HLP staff and being a general pain in the ass.
Violation: Repeated failure to be respectful to other forumites. Has been previously warned twice, temp-banned once, and continues to flaunt rules.
Action: Monkeyed
It would go a long way toward opening up communication between the admins/mods and the community as a whole. And as long as those decisions are firmly grounded, the only people that may question them are the subjects of the action and a few groupies they may have. But that's good too - it's healthy for a community to keep its moderation team's feet to the fire.
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I have no problem with something along those lines (it sounds very much like the old Thread of Shame suggestion).
I'm fine with no one liking the Hammer idea, the problem is that the role it was meant to fill (reporting back on what moderation was carried out) was never given any thought once everyone rejected the Hammer.
That said, I suspect that had it been used, it would have worked a lot better than most people believed. The warning system sends out a message to the user which can be edited by the moderator but which is essentially anonymous. It's pretty much the least complained about part of the moderation system.
That said, if we do implement a Thread/forum of Shame with moderators posting an explanation of how moderation was carried out, I will come down like a ton of ****ing bricks on anyone who has a go at the moderator posting the moderators decisions since they are the result of a consensus, and not an individual's decisions.
Protesting the decision is one thing, trying to make it personal is another.
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I have no problem with something along those lines (it sounds very much like the old Thread of Shame suggestion).
I'm fine with no one liking the Hammer idea, the problem is that the role it was meant to fill (reporting back on what moderation was carried out) was never given any thought once everyone rejected the Hammer.
That said, I suspect that had it been used, it would have worked a lot better than most people believed. The warning system sends out a message to the user which can be edited by the moderator but which is essentially anonymous. It's pretty much the least complained about part of the moderation system.
That said, if we do implement a Thread/forum of Shame with moderators posting an explanation of how moderation was carried out, I will come down like a ton of ****ing bricks on anyone who has a go at the moderator posting the moderators decisions since they are the result of a consensus, and not an individual's decisions.
Protesting the decision is one thing, trying to make it personal is another.
This is perfectly reasonable.
My suggestion would to have a board in Site Management labelled "Forum behaviour" or something of the like where the moderation team posts the disciplinary measures currently in effect (and deletes those posts when they expire). Then implement a child board of that as an Appeals section. If you can set the appeals section for always-read-always-write for any user, including banned ones (I don't know if that's possible) it also eliminates the problem with your ban system where people have to resort to using the report function to appeal issues because they cannot post or PM anywhere (which I had some personal experience with once and I will tell you induced some rage at the no explanation, no ability to discuss nature of it).
For that matter, in the context of the above system where the posts are only dealing with significant issues and actually explain what's happened, and are the result of group consensus, I don't see a problem with the Hammer account. Where many of us hated the Hammer before was in the apparent removal of individual responsibility in disciplinary actions that were not explained/communicated, especially in-thread actions where it would just be jarring and obnoxious and totally ignore the need for MORE informal moderation by individuals, rather than less. If the posts in a behaviour board are the result of group action, after multiple warnings, etc, and document the history that led to the action, then there's actually good justification for using the Hammer account as an announcement system in those cases.
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Some kind of appeals system may be worth considering (I'm neither here nor there, would depend in large part on how it actually ended up playing out). But if it could be posted on by permabanned users, that leaves a big hole, not just for banned users to continue acting like dicks, but also for banned spambots to keep exploiting the system.
While appeals for most other punishments might be appropriate, I think permabans are generally used so rarely, and as a last resort generally following other appealable events that losing the right to appeal them isn't such a great loss.
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About the concept of a "Thread of Shame" or any similar public posting of mod decisions, the one thing that does concern me is to what extent such dealings should be viewed as public knowledge. I mean I definitely agree that moderation policies should be completely transparent to the userbase, both for a better understanding on how the rules are applied and for accountability reasons, but at the same time I feel like discussions between moderators and individual members shouldn't automatically become public record, unless the user him/herself wishes it so. Otherwise I think we run into the danger of "ban-shaming," for lack of a better term, becoming a problem.
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I'm not really sold on the 'thread of shame' idea but there definitely need to be some measures for making moderation open and accountable to normal users. There are some discussions that still need to take place in confidence, though.
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The Thread of Shame was the rather informal name for it.
What it's basically meant to do is to cover the reasons behind formal warnings. Not the discussions, those will and should remain private, but if a user is banned we should have a place where other people can see what they were banned for. The Global mods will already know we do this internally already. There are a lot of posts on the global mod board saying "This user was monkeyed for a week for his actions on this thread" so the only change is to make an external version. But when someone like High Max gets banned for the straw that broke the camel's back, we can point at the Thread of Shame and say "Here's all the rest of the straw, here's a long list of examples of you making this forum a worse place to visit. That's why you're banned."
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Some kind of appeals system may be worth considering (I'm neither here nor there, would depend in large part on how it actually ended up playing out). But if it could be posted on by permabanned users, that leaves a big hole, not just for banned users to continue acting like dicks, but also for banned spambots to keep exploiting the system.
While appeals for most other punishments might be appropriate, I think permabans are generally used so rarely, and as a last resort generally following other appealable events that losing the right to appeal them isn't such a great loss.
It's important to distinguish between "full bans", which are complete restrictions on any HLP access whatsoever, and "permabans", which are bans that are never lifted. The first is about scope, the second is about duration. They are too often conflated.
It's worth noting that in a "full ban", a user can't even read the boards, which means that he's not going to know why he was banned unless it appears in the ban message or is communicated to him some other way.
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Might we look to my own banning back in the day as an example of the system working?