Poll: Open discussion on "rude" and other rules

[SolidState]

Oh for heaven's sake, this thread annoys me. The mods appear to be so out of touch with the community here, it's staggering.

Forgive my cynicism, but how would you know?

Recently, other sites have started their own big threads griping about The Escapist-- its moderation, its user base, its content, its everything. These aren't driven by the Escapist's own community; they're primarily off-site campaigns (and often with a not insignificant ideological bent).

If you're a lurker, that's fine, and I'll apologise wholeheartedly. I have nothing at all against lurkers. But if this is another instance of someone following an another site's campaign to affect a change within this one, then just stopit.

I've lurked for a little while, yes. But if you must know, I came across this thread by finding it linked here.

I was addressing something in this thread that I felt hadn't been sufficiently addressed by anyone else yet. Take it or leave it. But I have just as much right to air my concerns here as you or anyone else.

 

[Passive Aggression]

Tends to happy when the issue in question is with somebody who can ban others.

Quite possibly. Also possible it's the result of an off-site effort to change what this place is like. I'd object to either.

Even moderators themselves have admitted issues with the system and think there's room for change.

You're objecting to things even the staff in question are in favor of?

 

[SolidState]

A lot of the forums still seem very on edge after what happened with Topaz, it's not much surprise that those seemingly indifferent about the rules are those who find themselves with usergroups in common and even friends of the ex-moderator.

Topaz was also staunchly against any changes to moderation and would argue quite fervently against such changes in topics like this. Which, given what happened creates a very unfortunate image for the staff in question.

I think the staff really owes a lot of a lost faith to the community after what happened with Topaz, and a lot of bridges which were burnt need repairing.

Topaz, whether he was aware of it or not, revealed just how exploitable and open to abuse the current system is.
And from what I've read/heard, he did what he did for several months, before he was finally reprimanded for it.

The best way to restore faith in people, would be to introduce some clearly much-needed transparency. To reassure people that another Topaz incident cannot happen again.

 

[IceForce]

I think the staff really owes a lot of a lost faith to the community after what happened with Topaz, and a lot of bridges which were burnt need repairing.

A lot of these burnt bridges seem to be with people who joined long after this stuff actually happened.

Yeah, this is weird. People seem to be coming out of the woodwork just to gripe some more about Topaz (who isn't even a mod anymore, and isn't even HERE anymore).

Like this:

Topaz was also staunchly against any changes to moderation and would argue quite fervently against such changes in topics like this.

How does someone who only joined two days ago know any of this? You wouldn't happen to be a ban-dodger, perchance?

 

[Silvanus]

I've lurked for a little while, yes. But if you must know, I came across this thread by finding it linked here.

I was addressing something in this thread that I felt hadn't been sufficiently addressed by anyone else yet. Take it or leave it. But I have just as much right to air my concerns here as you or anyone else.

Not questioning your right. I just think it's shitty for other sites to consciously try to shift the politics of one they don't like, simply to make it less welcoming for viewpoints they don't want around.

Even moderators themselves have admitted issues with the system and think there's room for change.

You're objecting to things even the staff in question are in favor of?

Never said, and nor do I believe, that the system has no issues/ room for improvement.

I said I object to "off-site efforts to change what this place is like", such as the recent thread encouraging people to sign up to this forum expressly to make the Mods' work less pleasant. It's deceptive, controlling, shitty behaviour.

I'm not accusing you of it, note, I have no reason to think you're individually guilty of it.

 

[Passive Aggression]

I think the staff really owes a lot of a lost faith to the community after what happened with Topaz, and a lot of bridges which were burnt need repairing.

A lot of these burnt bridges seem to be with people who joined long after this stuff actually happened.

Yeah, this is weird. People seem to be coming out of the woodwork just to gripe some more about Topaz (who isn't even a mod anymore, and isn't even HERE anymore).

Like this:

Topaz was also staunchly against any changes to moderation and would argue quite fervently against such changes in topics like this.

How does someone who only joined two days ago know any of this? You wouldn't happen to be a ban-dodger, perchance?

How does somebody such as yourself, who wasn't alive in roman times know of Julius Caesar's assassination?!

You don't have to be around to experience things in order to know they exist. The forums keep it all in a nice chronological history, in which anyone can view.

I've lurked for a little while, yes. But if you must know, I came across this thread by finding it linked here.

I was addressing something in this thread that I felt hadn't been sufficiently addressed by anyone else yet. Take it or leave it. But I have just as much right to air my concerns here as you or anyone else.

Not questioning your right. I just think it's shitty for other sites to consciously try to shift the politics of one they don't like, simply to make it less welcoming for viewpoints they don't want around.

Even moderators themselves have admitted issues with the system and think there's room for change.

You're objecting to things even the staff in question are in favor of?

Never said, and nor do I believe, that the system has no issues/ room for improvement.

I said I object to "off-site efforts to change what this place is like", such as the recent thread encouraging people to sign up to this forum expressly to make the Mods' work less pleasant. It's deceptive, controlling, shitty behaviour.

I'm not accusing you of it, note, I have no reason to think you're individually guilty of it.

Genetic fallacies tend to make things very cliquey.

I'm not looking to be listened to, but, if somebody finds something I say to be of some use in resolving the situation, I'm quite happy to have been able to say it.




However, given you're both being so nosey, I'll spill my fairly mundane and not quite so covert origins.


Long time account, posted a while back, got tired of the mod bullshit and so I quit, came back recently unsurprised to hear all the drama.

Forgot my account password. In the process of recovering it.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Semi-regularly, you will see a user suddenly gets randomly banned, with no link to an offending post and no other reason for the ban given. Often such users have many hundreds if not thousands of posts. And we have no way of knowing why these users have been banned all of a sudden.

That's a lack of transparency.

OK, so you are technically correct here, in that reasons aren't given.
However you should be aware of an ongoing trend of people requesting to be banned.

Which, the mods will in fact oblige if you ask them.
Several of my early friends on this site did it.
They weren't coping, and they didn't feel they had the strength to stop posting, so they asked to be banned.
I've seen it first-hand, and I've seen anecdotal comments from some of the mods explaining the bans of certain people this way.

It of course doesn't invalidate your point, but it's worth remembering that this happens around here fairly regularly.

Anyway,
Moderating a forum is a difficult task. And unfortunately anything you do is going to create problems of one kind or another.

Nobody is unbiased. It just doesn't happen. Sorry. You have to keep that in mind here, because the mods are human, not robots.

And no set of rules is perfect. The more you try and set it in stone, the more things will end up slipping through the cracks. Besides which, have you seen what happens?
Do you think anybody is even going to care what the rules of conduct on a forum actually are if it's a 10,000 page document? (Samsung's EULA comes to mind... Nobody reads it, because it's impossible to do in any reasonable sense. We just blindly click 'accept' and hope it doesn't contain anything too horrible.)

Going down that road might seem like it would make things clearer, but... It really doesn't. Once a normal human being can no longer keep track of all these rules, a lot of them lose their meaning, because no reasonable person can even begin to know what all of them are.

That certainly wouldn't help the situation on these forums much.

I know what these forums are like. I've seen both direct and indirect insults, people attempting to goad others into saying the wrong thing (people have done that to me at times, I know), and all manner of other stuff.
But, having seen what the escapist is like, compared to other places...
I would say you can shift the nature of the problem around, but I don't think you can truly fix it.

One change to the rules merely takes away one problem and creates another. Change something to fix that and the problems shift somewhere else.

It's less a matter of trying to solve all the problems as it is a matter of choosing which problems you are willing to live with, and which you aren't.

 

[Silvanus]

Genetic fallacies tend to make things very cliquey.

I'm not looking to be listened to, but, if somebody finds something I say to be of some use in resolving the situation, I'm quite happy to have been able to say it.

However, given you're both being so nosey, I'll spill my fairly mundane and not quite so covert origins.

Long time account, posted a while back, got tired of the mod bullshit and so I quit, came back recently unsurprised to hear all the drama.

Forgot my account password. In the process of recovering it.

Welcome back to the board.

Hope you forgive the suspicion. Seeing this place get targeted more than once has begun to get my heckles up.

 

[KungFuJazzHands]

If you want a good idea of what "personal interpretation rules" can do to an internet community, please go take a look at the original Steam forum boards. Mods playing loose and fast with interpretation over there completely destroyed any trust the members of the community had in the system.

Humans are way too fickle emotionally to be trusted with snap judgements.

 

[IceForce]

And while that works for some specific things, like not calling people the T word,

What's the 'T' word?

"Troll". You're not allowed to call anyone a troll here.

COC: "Calling another user a troll is always an infraction."

 

[inmunitas]

Still, what I'd say is this: "You want to allow for distro of child porn" in the context of a debate could be a very real, albeit inflammatory assertion. "You are being disingenuous" as a flat statement is just a nice way of saying, "LIAR!!!". I would say that instead of saying that they're bullshitting, SHOW that they're bullshitting.

Which can just lead to the discussions being dragged down to the level of mulling over basic dictionary definitions of the English vocabulary rather then something that's actually intellectually stimulating.

 

[MonsterCrit]

Dislike.. not that they shouldn't do personal inerpretation but at the very least they should cite the problematic sentence or paragraph. Otherwise you have no real idea what you said that was so 'rude'. After all..where personal interpretation comes into play, it's sort of a given that you at least highlight the offensive matter otherwise the offender has no clue what in the entire post was flagged as rude.

 

[vallorn]

I think the staff really owes a lot of a lost faith to the community after what happened with Topaz, and a lot of bridges which were burnt need repairing.

A lot of these burnt bridges seem to be with people who joined long after this stuff actually happened.

Yeah, this is weird. People seem to be coming out of the woodwork just to gripe some more about Topaz (who isn't even a mod anymore, and isn't even HERE anymore).

Like this:

Topaz was also staunchly against any changes to moderation and would argue quite fervently against such changes in topics like this.

How does someone who only joined two days ago know any of this? You wouldn't happen to be a ban-dodger, perchance?

I'd say no, lurker, reading what people have posted in the past or the recent 8chan thread on moderation are all decent reasons to know about significant forum events. Hell, I know about Mellow Leprechauns but I wasn't around at the time.

 

[Username Redacted]

Moderating a forum is a difficult task. And unfortunately anything you do is going to create problems of one kind or another.

Moderating is thankless. Yes. Difficult? Not really. Not unless you have a ton of ticky-tack rules to enforce and a user-base that uses your services as a proxy to fight their battles for them. Hell, The Escapist, as best as I can tell, has quit a favorable mod to general user ratio (or at least a favorable mod to posting volume) which should insure that moderators aren't overworked/bombarded with review flags.

Nobody is unbiased. It just doesn't happen. Sorry. You have to keep that in mind here, because the mods are human, not robots.

The solution here is greater transparency (i.e. let people know who is making what decisions) and, when possible, try to make decisions by consensus (i.e. have three mods review each flagged message with the outcome being whatever the majority decides). Also because one of the issues that seems to be coming up a lot in this topic is appeals being overturned due to disagreements about how a rule was enforced. In that case if a mod consistently has their decisions overturned on appeal then perhaps they should no longer be a moderator.

 

[sky14kemea]

snip

Thank you for laying that out for me. I was wondering when someone would reply. I'll pass that on to the other Mods and see if we can work on it, though I can't promise an immediate change, since communication between us all tends to take a little time.

Edit: Sorry, I forgot to address this. Yes it is separate people who handle the appeals. Usually ffronw handles the appeals.