[Flipside]

Well, as far as I'm concerned, if I'm a Mod, I'm a Mod, if I'm not, I'm not. I'll keep doing the job as long as I'm required to, it's not something I could honestly say I look forward to doing or get any sort of kick out of, in fact, it's a pain in the arse on occasion, but it is a job that needs to be done.

I suppose the question people should be asking is 'Why do we need Moderators anyway?', and in that situation, the buck stops at the posters.

[iamzack]

Why hasn't this been locked yet?

It's just flaming now.

[el_magnifico]

While I elaborate a longer response for some of the posts here (it will take me a while), I wanted to apologize with The E if I said or did anything that could offend him. I didn't knew he had serious problems in his real life (like Battuta seemed to imply), and since he usually seems to be the kind of person that likes both to treat and to be treated in a frontal and sometimes rough way...
Again, I apologize.

[Black Wolf]

Why hasn't this been locked yet?

It's just flaming now.

I guess people are resisting locking a thread specifically about how we're locking too many threads...

[Mobius]

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

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

This.

I don't want to flame anyone, but I wish there was more modesty around here. 

[ShadowWolf_IH]

Why hasn't this been locked yet?

It's just flaming now.

I guess people are resisting locking a thread specifically about how we're locking too many threads...

I have yet to see a reason to lock it.  I see people disagreeing with one another and not flaming each other.  I see where it can turn into an arguement, but don't see it getting heated.  If i were a mod, i certainly wouldn't close it yet.

The E:
As far as whatever it is you are going through, i hope things work out for the best.  Sometimes the best may not be what we want, and sometimes it seems like all the doors are closed, but there are times when it is best to go through the open window anyway.  Either way, whetever it is, our thoughts go with you.

[el_magnifico]

Nah', I've finally decided to cut the post short:

just a few things to clarify:

El magnifico:

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

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

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

Alright, don't worry. I internally read that as "if you don't like it, go away!", and trust me I've quitted or changed a lot of things in my life immediately after hearing that, usually slamming the door while leaving. It's one of those things you know you're doing wrong in life, but you feel extremely compelled to do anyway. As you've been a member for such a long time, it kind of triggered that reaction inside me. As I now know that wasn't your intention, everything is fine.

[ShadowWolf_IH]

Nah', I've finally decided to cut the post short:

just a few things to clarify:

El magnifico:

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

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

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

Alright, don't worry. I internally read that as "if you don't like it, go away!", and trust me I've quitted or changed a lot of things in my life immediately after hearing that, usually slamming the door while leaving. It's one of those things you know you're doing wrong in life, but you feel extremely compelled to do anyway. As you've been a member for such a long time, it kind of triggered that reaction inside me. As I now know that wasn't your intention, everything is fine.

My first reaction to your post was "Make sure you close the door on the way out." 

These days i tend to step back and think before i speak though.  Had i spoken my gut reaction, you would have left with hard feelings, and HLP would be without yet one more person who could add a different perspective to a conversation. 

Instead I thought about where you were coming from on it, and it gave me perspective.   I am not an eloquent speaker, and as usual, what I tried to say came out wrong, which is to say, at least you heard me wrong.  Maybe if we try to find a reason for someone's anger instead of giving in to our own, things like this can be avoided.  It really does go back to, if we want to be treated as adults, then we'd damned sure better act like adults.

 I've seen too many good people who contributed a lot of work leave HLP because of this kind of thing.  I've seen admins and mods leave because of the constant arguing and bickering.   I have no wish to perpetuate yet another.  Even people I don't like probably have something to offer, or they wouldn't have come here in the first place.  We would all do well to remember that.

[Unknown Target]

I haven't been keeping up on this discussion.

Moderating a discussion has a lot to do with respect for others, in my opinion. The moderators should, in my opinion, be respected enough so that they shouldn't have to moderate anything (i.e. "don't piss off the mods"), while at the same time I feel that the moderators should not get that respect for simply being mods, they need to earn it (i.e. "the mods are dicks, we shouldn't listen to them anyway"). It's a two way street that I think both folks need to learn to check themselves before doing anything.

For moderators, I would say that if you are moderating a thread, as in legitimately watching it for the sole purpose of keeping a discussion going, as opposed to entering your opinion into it, then that's all you should ever do in that thread. That is a self check. If you find that you simply cannot not discuss a topic in a thread without editorializing your responses (this requires you to honestly think about every post you write), then you should be representing yourself as a regular forum member and not a mod - that means that, if you feel the topic becomes too heated, you should call in another mod to take a look at it. This is what I would do, if you feel you have a compelling argument to the contrary then I would beg of you to present it.

That being said, the users should have a recourse to air their grievances, and the mod in question should probably at least try to listen. For instance, this thread split, instead of simply split/locking, gives the community a way to voice their grievances and a way to let the mods grade their own performance.

The difficulty with moderators is that there's no checks and balances on them for the most part, other than the fact that we can't ban people (admin only right, however when we request a ban or a monkey it's obviously examined closely). That means that a lot of a moderator's job is based solely on their own ability to remain level headed and even handed. The community can offer it's own voices on whether or not a moderator is doing a good job of that, but in the end it is up to the individual. The best moderator, in my opinion, is the one that would willingly step down from his post because he believes he's doing a poor job. Before anyone says "well why don't you step down???", the answers is because I do not think that I am doing a poor job.

[Flipside]

Sometimes refusing to continue the discussion and just walking away is the best thing to do anyway. People talk of ragequitting as though it were a bad thing, but considering the other options, it's possibly the best outcome on occasion, so long as it isn't permanent.

[karajorma]

I'll be posting on the subject of moderation on the internal some point soon. I do think this is something that the mods need to discuss with the admins. Getting a second, impartial opinion is a good idea though. I don't think I've banned anyone without getting a second opinion except when we instituting a zero tolerance policy on flaming. Back then it wasn't really necessary to check as calling someone an idiot got you banned.

At the same time, though, the phrase "necro'd!" gets thrown around by certain individuals far more often than it needs to (god i hate that beam kill it with fiyah), and there are instances when using a pre-existing thread is perfectly acceptable.  For one, stickied threads are always open to new posts, and posting in a campaign's original release thread to comment on it is generally considered just fine too.

Agreed with on all points. I'm pretty sure I've had a go at people for overuse of the Necro beam in the past (I've had a go at people about every other beam for certain ). As with the calls to lock a topic or shouting "In B4 Lock" when used on those threads they're at best spam and at worst an attempt to tell the moderator to follow the herd rather than exercise their own judgement.

Again, if you want me to tell people off for misusing it more often, I'm happy to. With great power comes great responsibility and if you're wielding a beam cannon and not bothering to check your targets you're going to end up facing a court martial soon enough.

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.

1. No 4 users is not particularly high. Most forums have people banned. Take a look at The Escapist forums for instance and try to find a single thread that doesn't have someone banned on it. Furthermore Political Prisoners isn't even a real ban. They can post anywhere else in the forum, they just can't post in the forum that brings out the worst in them.
2. The examples you give weren't even perma-bans. In fact they were punishments for abusing HLP's broken permissions system during the upgrade to give themselves image sigs and lasted all of 2 days. Before I gave you those stats I looked up the actual numbers (something only an admin can do easily).

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

High Max was a massive disruptive influence on the forum. No matter the subject he would always steer the conversation round to discussions about his belief that he West was morally bankrupt while the Orient was good and pure. He would then condescendingly argue with anyone who disagreed with that view completely derailing the topic. This is a great example of why he was banned. In one thread he asks for heavier moderation, claims he is a model forumite, posts a long, off-topic steam of conciousness type post, gets into a flame war and then deletes all his posts on the subject making the thread incomprehensible.

There are more examples but he wiped almost all of his posts after being monkeyed and was then banned.

Shall I point out that he was monkeyed at least 3 times (that are mentioned in the admin forum, it's undoubtedly a lot more) and warned repeatedly. We put up with this sort of behaviour from him for years! So it's not like he was banned for nothing. It a long-term pattern of abuse that got him banned.

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

Actually Kosh has been very left wing for the most part and you can see how close he's teetering on the brink of getting banned (admittedly non-perm at the moment). Iamzack is another example of a left winger who has had trouble with the admins.

Liberator was banned, not for his opinions, but for his inability to actually debate. He'd post something that would get everyone seething, get replied to, ignore the replies and just post something else. If this behaviour is intentional you'd call it trolling. In Liberator it may have not been intentional but it was just as disruptive. He was told several times how to avoid being a problem and he completely ignored it, continuing the same pattern of behaviour.

After repeated temp bans it was simply made permanent because it was too much trouble to clean up after him.

Charismatic?

Banned for a week for trolling the Leslie Nielson RIP thread. Wasn't permanent.

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

It wasn't just that. That was simply one in a long string of offences. Telling someone to kill themselves because they disagreed with him wasn't even the last straw. I forget what finally got him banned but it was more of the same.

[Mars]

I've been on this forum since I was a young teenager and held Dominionist (Hard core Christian conservative) beliefs from my father. Over the years I've flipped over to the other extreme, where I favor less social control and more socialist policies. Two fairly extreme viewpoints.

I've never felt like the admins or mods have been biased against me. (Except maybe Nuke XD)

On the other hand, I felt like the attempt to "moderate" the discussion of the shooting of the Representative was downright overbearing, and stifled, rather than helped the discussion, at least at first.

[redsniper]

Airing of grievances time? Airing of grievances time

Dear HLP, you're too goddamned serious. Chill out a bit. It often feels like you're just looking for something to be mad about. Also, people seem to be rarely given the benefit of the doubt. I.e. someone makes a mistake, says something wrong, what-have-you and then everyone jumps on them immediately assuming they're a moron and don't know what they're talking about. We're all brothers in FS fandom, we should not be enemies. Be excellent to each other. Oh and don't say "but redsniper, that's the internet! Toughen up and deal." No! We're better than that.

Which brings me to...

Overall I think HLP is doing all right and haven't had much issue with the way things are moderated. I kinda miss when we were allowed to talk about piracy as long as no links were posted, but I can understand why that's been cracked down upon. But anyhow, HLP is a good internet. Let's try and keep it that way by not being pricks to each other.

Oh, and all the #hard-light OPs should be mod candidates if we're seriously considering replacement mods.

[Scotty]

I'm.... fairly certain that most of the IRC OPs are already mods or admins.

[redsniper]

Well... yeah I guess so. I was mostly thinking about Herra and Axem there.

[el_magnifico]

Alright, I'll check this topic again in a week or two. Have fun, and thank you for hearing.

[Nuke]

i think one of the big problems is that the debates happen on general discussion. gd is essentially the troll lounge. which means that every troll is free to completely wreck any debate that happens there. i think debates kinda need to be on another board specifically for debate, moderated by people who are familiar with the art of debate. if only to make it easier to ban the trolls. aside from that i see debaters completely hijack a thread and skullthump anyone else who just wants to post their opinion. i see this happen a lot:

somone posts a news article and gives their opinion about it
someone gives a conflicting opinion
somone trolls
a debate forms and goes back and fourth
somone posts an opinion
the debaters demand sources, or evidence backing up that opinion
somone trolls
poster of opinion states that it was just his opinion
somone trolls
flamewar
more trolling

debate is anything but "general discussion" and deserves its own board. first of all it keeps the trolls out, second of all it would encourage fair debate, it would enforce the rules of debate (making debates more civilized and promoting proper sourcing), it would provide a place to dump debates when they take over threads in gd, and it would free up people who have opinions from having to explain themselves.


another thing that bothers me is that moderators dont seem to have any power over any users that may be causing problems, we might be able to lock threads, or move them, or split them. but we cant really take any action against anyone to say "hey! your being an asshat! shape up or ship out!". simply giving us the option to temp ban people for up to 24 hours would allow us to say "dont **** with the moderators!" to anyone being a total dick. i mean seriously, idle threats are hardly a useful moderation tool.

[redsniper]

If you moved debates to their own board, GD would be EMPTY. See that's another thing mods, could you let the silly threads live just a little longer? Please? They're a rare ray of sunshine amidst the constant ****storms and rage in this board.

[General Battuta]

Yes I agree with this but for some reason noooooo we can't have fun on red and black forums of serious posting

[NGTM-1R]

another thing that bothers me is that moderators dont seem to have any power over any users that may be causing problems, we might be able to lock threads, or move them, or split them. but we cant really take any action against anyone to say "hey! your being an asshat! shape up or ship out!". simply giving us the option to temp ban people for up to 24 hours would allow us to say "dont **** with the moderators!" to anyone being a total dick. i mean seriously, idle threats are hardly a useful moderation tool.

Giving you all of all people the option to 24 tempban does not seem wise.