Favoritism

Blue_turnip · Post by **Blue_turnip** » 21 Nov 2008 01:28

dyalander wrote: Actually, in an ideal world users wouldn't bicker like infants and throw tantrums when things don't go their way.
Yes there is a lot of crap that goes on around here, but instead of constantly dumping on the mods why don't users just show some maturity. Mods are not your mothers, we're not going to follow you around and wipe up the spew that leaks into your posts.

Is it really that hard to just PM a mod when you see something that might need to be removed or taken down?

They remove topics that embarrass other people, but leave ones up that embarrass me.
Here's a tip, stop embarrassing yourself.

The mods are clearly overwhelmed by the amount of crap that gets posted. We're doing the best we can. If you want the forums to be better make them better yourself by posting better content. Take some responsibility for yourselves.

I was not involved with the removal of the thread in question so I'm not sure who asked for what to be done. But, let me say that if users make reasonable and timely requests the mods will oblige as best as possible. We're not going to go back and clean up crap from days, weeks, months, years ago. But if you breach the rules and can't edit out your mistake, or see another user's breach and want it removed, PM a mod straight away and we'll try to deal with it.

Okay, clearly you don't understand your role as a moderator.

If all the role entailed was waiting for PMs from people when a thread gets out of hand, then coming in to delete the thread and telling everyone that your not their 'mothers' then really just... ugh. Fail. The reason moderators exist is because forums are full of crap and you need people to deal with it. You can't just complain that modified is full of crap -> thats why you're here. If modified wasn't full of crap there'd be no need for moderators.

Also I'd argue that wiping up swpew is not just the role of the 'mother' (why not the father?), and I'm sure i could walk to uni on monday and find some femenists that would seriously debate how politically correct your post you just made was.

"Overwhelmed with crap" is simply a poor excuse. Modified has the lowest post to moderator ratio of any forum i visit. No great philosophical thought needs to go into each little dilemma. Just pass reasonable judgement on each post you see and delete it if its dodgy. Not hard.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 21 Nov 2008 02:48

dyalander wrote: I was not involved with the removal of the thread in question so I'm not sure who asked for what to be done. But, let me say that if users make reasonable and timely requests the mods will oblige as best as possible. We're not going to go back and clean up crap from days, weeks, months, years ago. But if you breach the rules and can't edit out your mistake, or see another user's breach and want it removed, PM a mod straight away and we'll try to deal with it.

I don't think anybody actually specifically asked a mod to delete the topic. I made 2 posts I think in the topic and 1 or both of them included the suggestion that the topic should be "moved or deleted because it's clearly not appropriate for the discussion forum." In saying that I simply meant that I did not think it was either an issue worth discussing or that any serious discussion was occurring in the topic. The discussion sub forum was originally meant to be a place for serious discussion about serious issues. It was created because the less mundane people on the forum were really annoyed with having their serious topics hijacked by idiots in the kicking circle. Sadly these days people post serious topics in the kicking circle because it's less likely to be hijacked there then here.

I don't care if the topic is brought back in its entirety locked or unlocked. I do think that the discussion forum is clearly not the right place for the topic however.

If the topic does get restored, I don't think the "threats of violence" should be deleted. I'm 24, I think I'm old enough to be able to cope with such scary statements, and let's face it, I'm half Asian and an atheist, so I have no morals and ninja skills. I would stab Sam in his sleep with a bread knife before he had an opportunity to hurt me anyway. That's not a threat, just stating a confirmed observable scientific fact.

Blue_turnip · Post by **Blue_turnip** » 21 Nov 2008 04:16

Jeremy wrote: If the topic does get restored, I don't think the "threats of violence" should be deleted. I'm 24, I think I'm old enough to be able to cope with such scary statements, and let's face it, I'm half Asian and an atheist, so I have no morals and ninja skills. I would stab Sam in his sleep with a bread knife before he had an opportunity to hurt me anyway. That's not a threat, just stating a confirmed observable scientific fact.

That is gold.

FlexThis · Post by **FlexThis** » 21 Nov 2008 13:02

Sam is a pretty big dude guys. I am half white (ok all white) and half crazy and I wouldn't want any of Sam.

But seriously ... the mods have too much power. Flame wars are what makes Modified fun. If you keep deleting posts because people make text threats, then maybe you should reconsider just what a threat is. Regardless of the rules, this is the discussions forum. Let the shit fly. It is entertaining. These guys are on opposite sides of the Earth.

Give me a break...

dyalander · Post by **dyalander** » 21 Nov 2008 18:14

Also I'd argue that wiping up swpew is not just the role of the 'mother' (why not the father?), and I'm sure i could walk to uni on monday and find some femenists that would seriously debate how politically correct your post you just made was.

Good point, I should have said parent.

If all the role entailed was waiting for PMs from people when a thread gets out of hand, then coming in to delete the thread and telling everyone that your not their 'mothers' then really just... ugh. Fail. The reason moderators exist is because forums are full of crap and you need people to deal with it.

I never said that we'll only ever take action on something if a specific request is made. My point isn't that the only time we will ever do anything is when we're asked. If any of the mods see something that offends them as a user and clearly breaches the rules we will act. It should be clear that it takes a fair bit for both those triggers to be set off for the mods currently on the boards. If, however, another user sees something and makes a request, we'll take a look and if we think it's a fair point we'll take appropriate action. Ideally the moderators and users would all be in sync about what should and should not be removed. But that's not going to happen. I think its better if the mods do less rather than more. I think this whole thing is aperfect example of that. Had Ian not moved the thread and let it sit with all the other crap in discussion, there would have been no issue. Instead he made an effort to take out one of the inappropriate threads and peoople have a spack attack because on the one hand a buch of people think he should have left it, and on the other people think that it just goes to show that there's a bunch of other crap that should be removed. Its basically a big lose lose for mods.

My point is, all these people come out of the woodwork and bring up all these old threads and posts that are supposedly unacceptable yet no one ever thinks to pm a mod when they first arise. If everyone pulled i nthe same direction the boards would be a better place.

The more I think a bout the more i think the discussion section is a bad idea. If you look at the sections that work best, they are the sections in which everyone understands what belongs and what doesn't. Clearly with respect to the duiscussion section, not everyone understands what constitutes serious discussion and so that section will never work properly.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 21 Nov 2008 18:38

I agree somewhat that it's silly to expect moderators to do the things you want them to do if you don't tell them that's what you want. Rather than relying on omnipotent moderators, if you have a problem with something, let them know. That doesn't seem very difficult.

I also think the discussion forum worked really well for a long period of time. The problem perhaps is the statement I made that it would be the "least moderated forum." That was said under the conditions at the time which was where people were only posting in it to discuss non forum and non footbag related serious issues, and there was little debate about whether the issues were serious or whether the discussion was serious. It was obviously naive of me to make that statement, because since then people have used this as place to discuss completely meaningless topics that could not possible be construed as serious and to try to get around as many rules as they can and then to use that statement as the excuse.

It's crazy that the kicking circle is now a better place for serious discussion than the discussion forum. I would say the discussion forum needs far more moderation and all inappropriate topics should be moved or deleted. Posts that off topic or personal attacks in the discussion forum should also result in some kind of action, although I'd move towards removing their posting rights to the forum rather than deleting the posts. Obviously some discretion would be needed with such a policy, as the occasional humorous post or attack isn't really a big deal, it's more an issue with the people who appear to not have the social skills to engage in a mature and serious discussion at all.

dyalander · Post by **dyalander** » 23 Nov 2008 14:52

I'm not sure its worth keeping the discussion section at all.

If we went through and deleted all the inappropriate threads based on either their degeneration into personal abuse or their inability to meet some level of seriousness then what would remain would have been fine in Kicking Circle. So why have the section at all?

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 23 Nov 2008 16:33

I disagree. If you go back a few pages then the vast majority of topics are serious discussions. Removing the comment about this forum being the least moderated forum and moving any future topics that are not serious issues out of here would be all that is required to maintain this forum.

QuantumBalance · Post by **QuantumBalance** » 23 Nov 2008 17:22

First, posts are deleted, now a main mod wants to delete a whole section because he views it as unneeded. Power elite wins as usual. I hope he doesn't decide its actually time to remove it.

Frank_Sinatra · Post by **Frank_Sinatra** » 24 Nov 2008 10:44

dyalander wrote:I'm not sure its worth keeping the discussion section at all.

+1

habitat · Post by **habitat** » 24 Nov 2008 11:19

Frank_Sinatra wrote:
dyalander wrote:I'm not sure its worth keeping the discussion section at all.
+1

-1 for you, you can't even defend your own insults.

dyalander · Post by **dyalander** » 24 Nov 2008 16:16

Removing the comment about this forum being the least moderated forum

That is definitely the least that should be done. I suggested this a while back but n one had the time to do it and I never got around to doing it myself.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 24 Nov 2008 16:23

Do it right now, and create a new post saying; "This is the most moderated forum on modified"

Make the new one a sticky or announcement as well.

dyalander · Post by **dyalander** » 24 Nov 2008 16:26

To help make it all a bit clearer - I'd like to know what threads people would delete from this section and why.

If there are valid reasons, I don't see why I can't go ahead and use the suggestions to clean up the section - I won't just delete stuff all over the place, I'll consider it carefully first - and moreover I'll move them off the boards and if it turns out to have been a mistake I'll be able to move them back. The main purpose would be to clean up the section a bit, and also to give me a better sense of how to keep it clean in the future.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 24 Nov 2008 19:01

Ok here's my list. I only went through the first page of posts and it's possible I missed some, or that because I didn't read all the topics, I have some on my list that shouldn't be, but hopefully it's at least 90% accurate

Also note that I just wrote down the name of each topic and paraphrased a little, but hopefully it should be clear what topic I'm talking about.

List 1; These topics should be moved to the video section, since they relate specifically to footbag videos.

Showing videos on MySpace
YouTube and copyright Crap

List 2; These topics definitely shouldn't be deleted because they relate specifically to criticisms of the forum, and that kind of feedback should never be deleted, even if it's misguided. However they're also not appropriate for this forum at all. This forum is not supposed to be a place for discussing how the forum is run. I would put them in the Kicking Circle, General Footbag, or create a new Forum Issues forum or something along those lines. This forum was only intended for serious discussion of issues not related to footbag or to the organisation of footbag, and clearly discussing how modified is run is discussing something pertaining to the organisation of (communicating amongst the community of) footbag.

Favoritism
Rule Change
Striving to be more like the Europeans
End of Days
THIS IS WHERE I GET BANNED
Modified Mods - Worst ever?
Hack Off or Back Off
Warning List
HEY MODS!

List 3; These are topics that are clearly not appropriate in this forum as they are jokes rather than serious discussion, or in one case, asking people to list their own experiences, rather than discuss a serious issue. It's probably that there are more like these that I missed. I would see no problem in moving these to the kicking circle rather than deleting them.

My complaint about Eric F Chang Phd
Types of suicide
Dissertion of the self-aggrandizement of certain members
You fail at failing
work ethic

These lists are based on the initial issue that was to be discussed in the topic, not the consequent standard of discussion. As you can see, those topics make up a significant minority of topics posted in this forum. The majority are fine.

BainbridgeShred · Post by **BainbridgeShred** » 24 Nov 2008 22:38

Lol cant bleive I spelt disertation like that

Blue_turnip · Post by **Blue_turnip** » 25 Nov 2008 03:43

I can, lol.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 25 Nov 2008 03:55

I'm unsure about the last two posts. You guys are aware that I made that typo, and that Dan didn't spell it how I did - he spelt it "dissertation", which is correct? As I mentioned I was typing from short hand notes and I made a few errors. If you're laughing at me making a typo, you must find a lot of my posts funny.

dyalander · Post by **dyalander** » 25 Nov 2008 17:06

Ok, so it seems like most of the stuff can be easily moved rather than deleted.

I don't see any problem with making those moves. I think Work Ethic could stay in discussion.

Also a section for discussion of forum management/policy is a good idea.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 25 Nov 2008 17:23

I can live with that. It pretty much doesn't matter what happens to topics that haven't had a post in a month anyway. Perhaps you could change the title of the topic from "work ethic" to "worth ethics" since they're completely different and I think it's actually about the the latter. Not that it matters, I just noticed that when I re-read the topic.