Author Topic: stopping ForumMaster from destroying BattleMaster  (Read 132113 times)

Anaris

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It's hard to provide evidence without having access to the boards. I believe I provided 3 examples. Here are three more:

1. Talking about Nazi symbols on a server hosted in Germany
2. Insulting the Zuma GM and anything to do with the Zuma
3. Bad-talking Aurvandil well after the multi-cheater was banned

And that's just the Dwilight local.

What, exactly, are you responding to?

These are clearly things that should be taken care of by moderation.
Timothy Collett

"The only thing you can't trade for your heart's desire...is your heart." "You are what you do.  Choose again, and change." "One of these days, someone's gonna plug you, and you're going to die saying, 'What did I say? What did I say?'"  ~ Miles Naismith Vorkosigan

Velax

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Hmm. Even though I was one of those who said taking away the Local boards would eliminate a lot of the crap, I have to admit I feel far less inclination to come to the forums with the Local boards gone. They were responsible for most of the bull!@#$ in the forums, true, but they were also the most entertaining boards to read.

Geronus

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Hmm. Even though I was one of those who said taking away the Local boards would eliminate a lot of the crap, I have to admit I feel far less inclination to come to the forums with the Local boards gone. They were responsible for most of the bull!@#$ in the forums, true, but they were also the most entertaining boards to read.

And interesting, maddening, inspiring, etc. They are literally the lifeblood of the forum.

Revan

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If you want the locals to return, work out a proposal that ensures their downsides are considered and avoided. Can we create a place to talk ABOUT a game world or a realm WITHOUT removing content from the game that belongs into in-game messages?

Probably the best suggestions for curbing their downsides have already been made been made by Anaris. Guidelines against discussing planned or ongoing events less than a week old. Meanwhile with a mod for every board you can make sure that threads are nipped in the bud early if they do err on the wrong side of the rules.

I suppose ideally, given some of the negative perceptions of mod involvement in discussions previously, mods should be paired to continents that they are not heavily involved with themselves. That way there can be less of an outcry about them taking sides or getting too emotionally involved in any discussions themselves.

Maybe also have a much lower lower threshold for getting muted just for the locals board. To some it might seem punitive, but it should hopefully get the message across that nonsense or abuse will not be tolerated in the locals area.

Anaris

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I suppose ideally, given some of the negative perceptions of mod involvement in discussions previously, mods should be paired to continents that they are not heavily involved with themselves. That way there can be less of an outcry about them taking sides or getting too emotionally involved in any discussions themselves.

This is likely to be impractical, simply because a mod should be someone who is, in fact, active on the board they are moderating. Otherwise, they're not going to know the situations involved or the histories of the posters. Furthermore, if they're actively reading most or all threads on the board, they can moderate quickly when they see something wrong, and not have to wait for a report.
Timothy Collett

"The only thing you can't trade for your heart's desire...is your heart." "You are what you do.  Choose again, and change." "One of these days, someone's gonna plug you, and you're going to die saying, 'What did I say? What did I say?'"  ~ Miles Naismith Vorkosigan

egamma

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This is likely to be impractical, simply because a mod should be someone who is, in fact, active on the board they are moderating. Otherwise, they're not going to know the situations involved or the histories of the posters. Furthermore, if they're actively reading most or all threads on the board, they can moderate quickly when they see something wrong, and not have to wait for a report.

I actually muted the continents that I don't play on; I have no interest in reading those threads. I've also muted other areas of the forum that I don't have time or interest to keep up with. If someone were to report a post, I could then take action upon it, but I'm not going to read it simply because I'm "impartial", any more than I should watch "days of our lives" so that I can post an "impartial" Wikipedia article on it. My time is my own and I'm simply not going to spend it looking for trouble (or watching soap operas).

Also, if someone is disclosing IG information, I have no idea of it's supposed to be a big secret, or if everyone on the island knows about it; so how could I decide what to delete, and what to keep? Best to let those familiar with local politics police them.

Tom

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I'm not sure the "one week after" rules has been thought through.

When is "one week after"? After what? The beginning of an event? The crucial point of an event? The conclusion of an event? When is that? When the revolution is done or when the new government has settled in or is the immediate counter-revolution still the same event?

Penchant

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It's hard to provide evidence without having access to the boards. I believe I provided 3 examples. Here are three more:

1. Talking about Nazi symbols on a server hosted in Germany
2. Insulting the Zuma GM and anything to do with the Zuma
3. Bad-talking Aurvandil well after the multi-cheater was banned

And that's just the Dwilight local.
1. There were players complaining on the forums about someone using Nazi symbols in game. That is not a forum issue, that is a players trying to police each other which is encouraged behaviour last I check.

2. I recall the thread and I suppose I should have reported to the moderator, but to be honest until recently I have just kind of phased out the report to moderator button. The posters, which I believe was one or two insulting the Zuma GM and such in the Zuma thread should have been muted with reasons why as simply locking that topic after awhile has not helped the situation.

3. If I would have remembered the report to moderator button I would have done it because I know I posted several times those who repeatedly did that to quit although I believe the moderators are also at fault when a thread was made for the sole bashing of Mendicant after he was locked and the moderators left it. I was simply shocked when I saw that that it wasn't locked almost immediately. Toxic topic by there very nature like that should be locked as soon as a moderator sees it.

I'm not sure the "one week after" rules has been thought through.

When is "one week after"? After what? The beginning of an event? The crucial point of an event? The conclusion of an event? When is that? When the revolution is done or when the new government has settled in or is the immediate counter-revolution still the same event?

Its a bad idea anyways IMO. People don't go, "hmmm yeah remember that thing from last month? That was great." People talk about events somewhat soon after they happen and a week is not that. I could see 2-3 days being fine but I am not a fan of a week being the time. Personally I don't like the idea of trying to apply a strict amount of time because while some things it fine to wait, other things after a certain time the event is no longer worth talking about depending on the event.
« Last Edit: August 13, 2013, 10:27:56 PM by Penchant »
“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”
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egamma

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What, exactly, are you responding to?

These are clearly things that should be taken care of by moderation.

I edited my post; I was actually replying to your previous post, claiming that nothing bad ever happened on the locals.

And yes, those things should have been moderated; I actually did moderate 2 of the 3 things, and I wasn't a global moderator when all the Zuma-bashing was going on. My point is, moderators shouldn't have to moderate that crap. Moderators locked the Zuma thread, so a new one popped up. Anti-Zuma comments percolated half the active threads in the Dwilight board. Anti-Aurvandil commends percolated about a quarter of the active threads int he Dwilight board. Players (some, not all) are too passionate, apparently.

And that passion should be in-game. Work on establishing continent-wide gossip guilds. The 'Moot on Dwilight is a great communications channel, even though it only covers about 1/3rd of the island.

All of you who love Dwilight, and I do, consider this. Wasn't the entire point of SMA to keep it all in character? And yet we have all these complaints about not allowing this OOC chatter.

Kwanstein

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I have an idea. Currently the forums are easier to communicate on than anything in-game, as forums allow discussions to be organised into topics. So how about allowing forum-like topics to made in-game. Have topics posted at guild houses, then anyone visiting a guild house can read and reply to those topics. Even this wouldn't be as handy as a forum, but it would provide a decent surrogate at least.

Penchant

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Quote
All of you who love Dwilight, and I do, consider this. Wasn't the entire point of SMA to keep it all in character? And yet we have all these complaints about not allowing this OOC chatter.
No, not at all. The point of SMA is to make different continents different, SMA in particular meaning the continent has a Serious Medieval Atmosphere. While OOC chatter IG on Dwilight is bad unless its necessary as it breaks that atmosphere when you exit that character you exit that particular atmosphere and that no longer applies as in there is nothing wrong with OOC chatter, OOG on Dwilight.
“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”
― G.K. Chesterton

Anaris

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I'm not sure the "one week after" rules has been thought through.

When is "one week after"? After what? The beginning of an event? The crucial point of an event? The conclusion of an event? When is that? When the revolution is done or when the new government has settled in or is the immediate counter-revolution still the same event?

That's why I said "planned, ongoing or less than a week old."

So if there's a tournament that was started 7 days ago, but still has a day to go before the actual contests, it's ongoing.

Obviously a war doesn't count as an "ongoing event"; individual battles, skirmishes, and incidents within the war do. If there's been a revolution, you can't talk about the actual rebellion itself until a week after it's over. If the rebellion succeeds, but there's a counter-revolution is being prepared, then it seems most reasonable to me that those are separate events, one finished, one ongoing.

I'm sure someone will come up with some edge case that is highly ambiguous even with the wording I've given, but I'm confident that with moderators acting in good faith, especially with knowledge of the posters in question, appropriate rulings can be made in any instance that comes up.

In any case, I remain unconvinced that such a clause is really needed in the first place, since it is being added specifically to prevent something happening which no one has yet provided a single shred of evidence of having ever happened.
Timothy Collett

"The only thing you can't trade for your heart's desire...is your heart." "You are what you do.  Choose again, and change." "One of these days, someone's gonna plug you, and you're going to die saying, 'What did I say? What did I say?'"  ~ Miles Naismith Vorkosigan

Eirikr

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2) Give people guidelines about what is acceptable, with #1 being "don't be an !@#$%^&" (or something similar). (No, that doesn't mean a set of ironclad rules that can be lawyered and gamed. It means guidelines.)

I would add that when these guidelines are broken, any action taken is noted publicly (with the offender remaining anonymous, if possible). My initial thought would be to add a final post whenever a thread is locked explaining why it was locked. Leaving warning signs lying about leaves clear indicators that certain behaviors are not allowed instead of leaving people in the dark about what happened.

For other actions, I'd just use that case as a specific thing to add to the guidelines. For example, let's say I am clearly posting only flame responses, but I'm not limited to one thread; make a specific note under "don't be an !@#$%^&" saying, "Flaming is not tolerated." etc.

Gustav Kuriga

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I edited my post; I was actually replying to your previous post, claiming that nothing bad ever happened on the locals.

And yes, those things should have been moderated; I actually did moderate 2 of the 3 things, and I wasn't a global moderator when all the Zuma-bashing was going on. My point is, moderators shouldn't have to moderate that crap. Moderators locked the Zuma thread, so a new one popped up. Anti-Zuma comments percolated half the active threads in the Dwilight board. Anti-Aurvandil commends percolated about a quarter of the active threads int he Dwilight board. Players (some, not all) are too passionate, apparently.

So you're basically saying moderators shouldn't moderate stuff that needs moderating? I'm not sure I follow you there...

All of you who love Dwilight, and I do, consider this. Wasn't the entire point of SMA to keep it all in character? And yet we have all these complaints about not allowing this OOC chatter.

The entire point of SMA is to have a serious medieval atmosphere. IC and OOC is irrelevant on that point except to where it applies on normal continents as well. So you're combining two separate cans of worms...

Anaris

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I edited my post; I was actually replying to your previous post, claiming that nothing bad ever happened on the locals.

And yes, those things should have been moderated; I actually did moderate 2 of the 3 things, and I wasn't a global moderator when all the Zuma-bashing was going on. My point is, moderators shouldn't have to moderate that crap.

Should or shouldn't doesn't enter into it. Everyone should play nice with each other and treat each other well, but sometimes people don't, so we need to have ways of dealing with it. Complaining about the way things should be just isn't productive.

So if stuff like that gets posted, absolutely, moderators should be moderating it.

Quote
All of you who love Dwilight, and I do, consider this. Wasn't the entire point of SMA to keep it all in character? And yet we have all these complaints about not allowing this OOC chatter.

Um...this is kind of irrelevant.

Yes, it's true, one of the points of SMA was to keep in-game interactions in character, as much as possible. But the forum is not in-game. SMA does not apply. So...what, exactly, was your point, again?
Timothy Collett

"The only thing you can't trade for your heart's desire...is your heart." "You are what you do.  Choose again, and change." "One of these days, someone's gonna plug you, and you're going to die saying, 'What did I say? What did I say?'"  ~ Miles Naismith Vorkosigan