[The E]

Take a look at Relentless's release thread. Instead of its participants being banned for a LONG time (To be fair, for four years, because that's the amount it took for KappaWing to make the campaign), nothing happened. As soon as the first negative "reviews," which had nothing to do with the campaign

Let us stop here for a moment. The first negative reviews, or rather, bug reports definitely DID have something to do with the campaign, in so far as his mod was not as stable or polished as it could have been. The fact that there was no or not enough discussion about the story is beside the point, really. People will talk about what they want to talk about; in this case, they wanted to talk about the technical issues surrounding the mod.
Also, looking back on the thread now, while I would agree that our conduct there could have been better, I still think the basic reaction was the right one. Also note that several people came forward to actually try and fix the issues that came up; That Deka then went on to rage and rage about people finding and reporting bugs rather than appreciate the story was, I think, not entirely our fault.

, arrived, people had an open invitation to join the bandwagon.

Those people being me, Jeff Vader, and arguably High Max.

No one got punished but KappaWing, whose release thread was allowed to die. Instead of banning the trolls and those couple of individuals responsible to derailing and killing the thread.

Seeing as some of those individuals actually provided fixes for the problems they found, that would have been a bit hard to argue, no?

Trolling is encouraged. If it happens in your release thread, bad luck. It is the thread that is at fault, not the persons that post in it.

Does the phrase "case-by-case basis" mean anything to you?

[karajorma]

It's a much better tactic to start a new thread and simply link to the old one. Old topics can get peoples backs up for numerous reasons.

1. It can confuse people who think that it's a new topic and don't notice the dates.
2. It can reignite arguments best left dead. No one is going to bump an old topic to start an argument up again from 2-3 years ago. But if the topic is bumped and people don't notice, you can cause problems
3. Since the topic starter is quite likely to be someone no longer active it can cause people to get happy (or angry) thinking someone is back only to annoy them when they aren't. Do you really want people reading your post when they are already angry with you?


As for the trolling and flaming issue. I'm quite happy to go back to the old zero tolerance policy on flaming if people would prefer that. At least that way it keeps everyone creative with their rudeness.

[TopAce]

...As for the trolling and flaming issue. I'm quite happy to go back to the old zero tolerance policy on flaming if people would prefer that. At least that way it keeps everyone creative with their rudeness.

Yes, please.

[ShadowWolf_IH]

To me the answer is quite simple.  Don't flame.

Moderators, I know that sometimes the line blurs, but facts are facts and opinions are opnions.  A thread should never be closed due to the opinions expressed within, but, when the fact of the matter is a question of HOW those opinions were expressed, we have another story entirely. 

If you take offense, report the post and be sure to state WHY you take offense.  In my opinion Liberator has a very narrow viewpoint.  As a Christian I tried to empathize with him more than once, but there is one lesson he forgot, and that is tolerance.  I remember stepping in where he and UT (iirc) were arguing heavily over Christianity and Paganism. I made the same points that Liberator did, but I did so in a non offensive manner, mostly because I have actually studied Paganism, and it allowed us to actually debate instead of argue in a religeon based thread.  I tihnk the end of the thread was a simple agreement that we will never believe in our stance more than when we are forced to defend it.  Any thread leading to a controversial issue needs to take a lesson from that and realize that we are discussing the issue at hand, and our feelings about it.  Calling someone an idiot because the view they have differs from ours is not just unacceptable, it shows a person who thinks they may well lose the arguement and since attacking the issue doesn't seem to help, they attack the person of the oposing viewpoint.  That's just my take and my opinion.

My lady is a staunch democrat who is  very politically minded, and my brother is the same way, but republican.  Imagine my fear at the thought of my brother spending a week with us.  They debated constantly, and all I could think, knowing the two of them as I do, was that a fight would erupt any moment.  I am happy to say that I was wrong, and I learned that "That's a good point, but I don't see it that way" goes a long way toward keeping things civil.

[el_magnifico]

Alright, long, and I mean loooooooooooooooooooooooooooong, post ahead:

I've never particularly felt that locks are overused. Whenever a lock doesn't have good enough reason behind it, it usually gets reversed. shrug.

I'm questioning what constitutes a good enough reason for a lock, and if a lock is always the best answer even in those cases.

And the all-pervading "no drama plz" that seems to govern current moderation appears to honestly stifle discussion.

Yes, we agree on that. Even though I admit there should be a limit for the drama, this "zero tolerance for drama" atmosphere is suffocating.

Eh? At this time Hard Light Monkeys is empty and there are only 3 members of the Political Prisoners , High Max (who I will remove as he's banned anyway), Liberator and Trashman. I'd love to see anyone tell me that either of those two is able to act like a mature adult in a rational political debate.

What about this? http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=73625.0

So you have at least four persons permabanned from GenDisc. That actually seems like a lot to me, compared to other forums where I go.

Now, about High Max, I've yet to see the reason why he was banned. He was a bit quick to anger, but in my experience he was just as quick to calm down. Maybe he wasn't the brightest member out there, but I still don't know why he was outright banned.

About Liberator, again, not the brightest member, but I'm still under the impression he got prisoned just because he was right-winger. I mean, yes, he was stubborn, and he couldn't articulate a reasonable argument even if his life depended on it, but I feel, based on my experience here, that If he would have been a left-winger, there would have been more tolerance for him. Note that I'm not saying this because I liked him, since he seemed to have a really bad opinion about Latin Americans, almost bordering on xenophobia.

Charismatic? I don't have a clue. I don't remember ever interacting with him, so I will not question, nor endorse, this sanction.

Trashman, as far as I know, was prisoned because he gratuitously insulted another member whom he was having a heated argument with. I remember reading those particular posts long ago. I have no objection against this sanction.

and partly down to the fact that after a while as a Moderator you learn to spot threads that are headed nowhere or into an argument

And why is that bad? Is small talk a bad thing to have? I guess this topic (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=73695.0) was locked because it was heading nowhere, and we were just having fun with animated gifs. But why is that bad? It probably would have gotten old within a week, and would have faded away on its own.
Arguments WILL happen inside human groups. Trying to avoid them will only accumulate tension, until it explodes in an uncontrollable way. I think the role of mods is not to keep members away from arguments, but to make sure arguments are sorted out in a reasonably civic way, or via PM's if all else fails.

HLP needs a lot more bans and monkeying. Simply locking threads solves nothing. Nothing at all.

If we have to choose between lots of locks and lots of monkeys, I would prefer lots of monkeys. It would be better if we can have an equilibrium and more warnings and peer intervention, but still...
As an example: In other forums I've been to, extremely heated arguments that went down to verbal violence usually ended up with a temporary ban, until both parties settled it via mail or PM, and apologized with each other.

Off topic: I'm not really sure, but it seems that my english is improving.

[Scotty]

High Max got banned from EVERYWHERE on HLP because he went back and systematically edited his 500 or so most recent posts to all read ";-)" or some **** like that, making some threads totally illegible.  He was also notorious for editing his posts to remove arguments that he wished to deny he'd ever made.

Liberator got banned for raising argumentative points and then ignoring everything said in opposition to them, spouting another point, and again ignoring all constructions against it.

Hope that helps

[The E]

Seriously? Four people permabanned from GD, out of a forum with ~10000 members is a lot? Andd as Scotty said, all those members have proven, over and over again, that they are incapable of contributing to the discussions in GD. That their entry in a discussion is almost guaranteed to derail the thread, or contribute nothing but uninformed, heavily biased, trollish, inflaming posts?

I'm questioning what constitutes a good enough reason for a lock, and if a lock is always the best answer even in those cases.

Given that as moderators, our options when confronted with a thread that seems to need moderation are, in no particular order:
1. Delete the thread
2. Delete the offending posts
3. Alter the offending posts
4. Split the thread at the point of derailment
5. Locking the thread in its entirety
6. Moving it to a place where the thread is better housed.

Of these, 1 and 2, while not forbidden, are only used to deal with spambots. 3 is heavily frowned upon. 4, 5 and 6 are therefore the only options realistically available, and option 5 is the easiest.

Trying to avoid them will only accumulate tension, until it explodes in an uncontrollable way. I think the role of mods is not to keep members away from arguments, but to make sure arguments are sorted out in a reasonably civic way, or via PM's if all else fails.

Given the instruments available to us moderators, just what would you use to make this happen?

[ShadowWolf_IH]

I don't think the zero policy is suffocating.  Debate is debate, arguement is arguement. Flaming is flaming.  NGTM was right, we for the most part are in college or older.  How about we just act like it, instead of acting like we are in high school and hitting someone for no better reason than, he talked to my girlfriend.  I have no problem with a debate, even a heated debate.  I do have a problem with arguement for the sake of arguement, and I have a huge problem with flaming for the sake of flaming.  The bottom line is simple, if we as a collective want the moderators to treat us adults, then we'd damned sure better act like adults.  If a poster has something to add the debate then by all means say it.  If not, do us all a favor and shut the hell up so that we can continue the debate without it being closed for no other reason than people weren't bright enough or grown up enough to have debate without it turning into a flame session. 

Even worse than the flaming is the people who bait the flaming so that they can look like a martyr.  Need I say more?

I'm not an eloquent speaker and I know this, but what I am is a man doesn't see things in terms of black and white, but in terms of right and wrong. I'll sum up my attitude on this easily.  Either be an adult in your debate or deal with the consequences. 

The mods and admins don't get paid, they do a thankless job and catch more hell from the people who benefit from them than anything else.  If you come to HLP and can't deal with how things are, then don't come back.  If you are a longtime member then you know how things are and you continue to be here.  You've already accepted how things are and have forfeited the right to yell about it.  If you want things to change, don't directly fight the things you want to change, instead adopt a circular attack pattern.  Attack the reasons that things won't change, and generally speaking, the reason is the maturity that people tend to display in politicoreligeous threads.  Calm that down and maybe things will change.

I am neither an admin nor a mod, but in ten years i've seen this arguement too many damned times.

I'm guilty as well as most.  So i'll start here.  Liberator, if you can read this, I apologize for the times I personally baited you, and flamed you.  It won't happen again, you have my word.

[NGTM-1R]

I'm going to catch hell for this, but perhaps we need different moderators then.

Dekker has turned out okay, but Nuke, by his own admission, simply locks threads because he doesn't like them, not because of their content. You, E, and Battuta, have both proved hairtrigger and inflammatory by turns, perhaps out of a self-admitted belief that you're better than most posters. In addition Battuta of late has taken to condescending at best and childish at worst posting habits. The relatively newer moderators have, for the most part, turned out to be a problem in and of themselves.

So maybe we can continue with the status quo ante, but not using the tools in place. Perhaps it's time to turn Global Mod duties over to Scotty, Shadowwolf, and Dilmah instead.

[el_magnifico]

Seriously? Four people permabanned from GD, out of a forum with ~10000 members is a lot?

How many of them are active members? To me, it looks like the number of active regular members and the number of admins, global mods, and mods, is pretty much the same. It may only be my impression, but still, the number of active members is definitely less than 10000. So yes, seriously.

Given that as moderators, our options when confronted with a thread that seems to need moderation are, in no particular order:
1. Delete the thread
2. Delete the offending posts
3. Alter the offending posts
4. Split the thread at the point of derailment
5. Locking the thread in its entirety
6. Moving it to a place where the thread is better housed.

Of these, 1 and 2, while not forbidden, are only used to deal with spambots. 3 is heavily frowned upon. 4, 5 and 6 are therefore the only options realistically available, and option 5 is the easiest.

Irrelevant. I know those are your options, and trust me you still have a better set of tools available than many mods in other forums. Yet you haven't answered the central question: What constitutes a good enough reason to intervene? And since you ask, take the topic that originated this one as an example. I admit I wasn't behaving (I'm not the only one, but still). Unknown Target gave me and the others a warning. We all toned it down. Now the topic is back on track. No lock was needed.

Given the instruments available to us moderators, just what would you use to make this happen?

Actual human intervention. Your title is "moderator", not "thread locker". If trying to tone down things with a warning and with moderation fails, I can understand the locking.
And, in the most extreme cases:

As an example: In other forums I've been to, extremely heated arguments that went down to verbal violence usually ended up with a temporary ban, until both parties settled it via mail or PM, and apologized with each other.

The mods and admins don't get paid, they do a thankless job and catch more hell from the people who benefit from them than anything else.

The topic was brought in. I have an opinion on it, which may be wrong or right, but it's my opinion. I think it will help to improve this place. So I will express it.

If you come to HLP and can't deal with how things are, then don't come back.

If you can't deal with feedback and constructive criticism that was actually asked by a mod and isn't even directed at you, then it's not my problem.
I also strongly dislike comments like that. If this is a select club and no criticism should be ever expressed, then tell me now, so I can leave immediately.

[General Battuta]

I'm going to catch hell for this, but perhaps we need different moderators then.

Dekker has turned out okay, but Nuke, by his own admission, simply locks threads because he doesn't like them, not because of their content. You, E, and Battuta, have both proved hairtrigger and inflammatory by turns, perhaps out of a self-admitted belief that you're better than most posters. In addition Battuta of late has taken to condescending at best and childish at worst posting habits. The relatively newer moderators have, for the most part, turned out to be a problem in and of themselves.

So maybe we can continue with the status quo ante, but not using the tools in place. Perhaps it's time to turn Global Mod duties over to Scotty, Shadowwolf, and Dilmah instead.

this is a pretty reasonable post except that 2 of your 3 replacements would be terribad

[NGTM-1R]

this is a pretty reasonable post except that 2 of your 3 replacements would be terribad

Your opinion is noted, but given your ability to make longterm board members quit out of disgust, not likely useful.

[Mongoose]

It's a much better tactic to start a new thread and simply link to the old one. Old topics can get peoples backs up for numerous reasons.

1. It can confuse people who think that it's a new topic and don't notice the dates.
2. It can reignite arguments best left dead. No one is going to bump an old topic to start an argument up again from 2-3 years ago. But if the topic is bumped and people don't notice, you can cause problems
3. Since the topic starter is quite likely to be someone no longer active it can cause people to get happy (or angry) thinking someone is back only to annoy them when they aren't. Do you really want people reading your post when they are already angry with you?

At the same time, though, the phrase "necro'd!" gets thrown around by certain individuals far more often than it needs to (god i hate that beam kill it with fiyah), and there are instances when using a pre-existing thread is perfectly acceptable.  For one, stickied threads are always open to new posts, and posting in a campaign's original release thread to comment on it is generally considered just fine too.  There are a few other occasions when a thread about a specific topic is just two or three months old that I generally don't mind seeing new posts in, either.  But really, if there's any doubt in your mind about posting in a specific thread, just do as karajorma suggests and start a new thread with a link to the old one, just to avoid any chance of people snapping at you.

[The E]

What constitutes a good enough reason to intervene?

Leaving apart the stuff that is counter to forum policies (spamming, direct links to pirated materials, pron....), and further leaving out general cleanup business (Threads that belong to FSO Support that are posted somewhere else, stuff that belongs in GD being posted elsewhere), my personal rule is that once I get the impression that what is discussed isn't adding anything new to the discussion, or is just a rehashing of an earlier argument, then it's time to bust out the lock. I may be overzealous sometimes, but that's what PMs and post reportings are for. Neither I, nor the other moderators, are the final authority in these matters, and different moderators may have differing opinions about a lock.

[iamzack]

this is a pretty reasonable post except that 2 of your 3 replacements would be terribad

Your opinion is noted, but given your ability to make longterm board members quit out of disgust, not likely useful.

not like he's the only mod/admin to do that :\

[Snail]

I'm going to catch hell for this, but perhaps we need different moderators then.

Dekker has turned out okay, but Nuke, by his own admission, simply locks threads because he doesn't like them, not because of their content. You, E, and Battuta, have both proved hairtrigger and inflammatory by turns, perhaps out of a self-admitted belief that you're better than most posters. In addition Battuta of late has taken to condescending at best and childish at worst posting habits. The relatively newer moderators have, for the most part, turned out to be a problem in and of themselves.

So maybe we can continue with the status quo ante, but not using the tools in place. Perhaps it's time to turn Global Mod duties over to Scotty, Shadowwolf, and Dilmah instead.

I'd like to submit my candidacy for Global Mod. As you can see I did a great job curbing the massive amounts of trolling on FSmodding. Also Hades and iamzack.

[el_magnifico]

What constitutes a good enough reason to intervene?

Leaving apart the stuff that is counter to forum policies (spamming, direct links to pirated materials, pron....), and further leaving out general cleanup business (Threads that belong to FSO Support that are posted somewhere else, stuff that belongs in GD being posted elsewhere), my personal rule is that once I get the impression that what is discussed isn't adding anything new to the discussion, or is just a rehashing of an earlier argument, then it's time to bust out the lock. I may be overzealous sometimes, but that's what PMs and post reportings are for. Neither I, nor the other moderators, are the final authority in these matters, and different moderators may have differing opinions about a lock.

OK, at least in your case now I know the criteria. Still, I have to wonder why don't you just let the topic fade away on its own. There are times when a thread is locked and some members (like myself) had something to add to it. When you lock it just because it looks like it's finished, we lose that chance. Also, it would be nice if you could actually state why you lock things (following your example, you could say: "It looks like the debate is over and everyone has stated their opinion, so I'm locking this.")

(god i hate that beam kill it with fiyah)

So I guess you wouldn't like it if I were to make an animated version of it?

[Scotty]

So maybe we can continue with the status quo ante, but not using the tools in place. Perhaps it's time to turn Global Mod duties over to Scotty, Shadowwolf, and Dilmah instead.

Me?  Really?  I'm touched.

[NGTM-1R]

Me?  Really?  I'm touched.

To be honest I was just throwing out the first three names that came to mind with a fairly evenhanded posting history here. If you're on IRC I can't say for sure.

Snail is doing a good job of demonstrating why I didn't use his name.

[ShadowWolf_IH]

just a few things to clarify:

El magnifico:

I never said not to express an opinion.  I have never and will never ask anyone not to exercise the right to express an opinion on a subject.  Express away.  I wasn't making an observation concerning this thread, I was making an observation in general about the crap that our mods and admins deal with daily.

That should actually cover both things you quoted from me.  But on your second statement, you quoted me out of context.  I think that perhaps a language or at least idiom barrier happened here.  The meaning of that statement was that none are forced to ever return if they don't like something about HLP.  The rest of the paragraph went on to explain a different tactic for bringing about change to something you don't like.  Yelling directly at the mods and admins will not work, as you then force them to defense, and once on defense they are vehement and steadfast in defending how things work here.

Now whether you stay or not is of course entirely your choice, but let me state  that while you and I may have differing opinions, you seem the sort who can hold a debate without it turning into flamefest, and I think we as a whole are better people like you here.

As far as my name being thrown in as a global mod...that's a horrible idea.  I have neither the time nor energy to be effective at it, and if I did it would still be a terrible idea.  I would epitomize Gunny Ermie in the geiko commercial.  "Does a former drill sgt make a lousy therapist?" That would be me as a mod, because again, I would have neither the time, the energy, nor the inclination to explain my actions.