Freedom to be Feisty on the Forums

[Aspect of Sorrow]

Up/downvote to the posts in question, thresholds met collapse the post (spoiler esque), like Reddit or Slashdot.

[Jepop]

Up/downvote to the posts in question, thresholds met collapse the post (spoiler esque), like Reddit or Slashdot.

Good suggestion.

[metaquad4]

Up/downvote to the posts in question, thresholds met collapse the post (spoiler esque), like Reddit or Slashdot.

That would be fantastic.

We could have have BG gold Donate 5$ to the server and get BG gold to give to someone else.

[Steve]

Do you know what a mature community is like?

That said, one can make the argument it has rarely ever been seen on a public internet forum. And I've been online since 1991.

I don't really want to get into a hashing out or rating of BGTSCC as a mature or childish community. However, I will say that we all have the capacity to either be mature (subjective) or childish (subjective). Either choice—by Ao let's hope people are making a choice and not ignorant of their behavior—should be allowed to be expressed, as long as it isn't a personal attack.

I realize that it is hard to NOT take things personally. Trust me, I know!

But if you really want to talk about Community, we have to start with the idea that the members of that Community are active in taking care of the other members, which is by definition, what makes it a Community. If you're only interested in shaming others, and only interested in telling others off, it will simply determine how others perceive You.

AoS makes a good suggestion in that as a Community, we could possibly self-manage through a system of mechanical management that promotes helpful comments, and hides off-base comments or trolling comments. It is a worthwhile approach to consider, even in the time before such a management system could come online (if ever).

[Deathgrowl]

I'd rather lock a thread on the verge of deterioration than leave it overnight and have 200 reports to action the next day.

The last two ones you locked were heated, but no one had broken any rules. We're yet again moving back to the hypersensitivity of the moderator team that I have criticised in the past.

Don't enforce judgment prior to the offense.

Our job as volunteer moderators is to maintain the civility of these forums and to save the DMs' time doing so

No, the moderator team has been made the way it currently is, seemingly specifically to be an authority over the DMs on the forums. It's a very, very poor design as only the DMs could and should have the full picture in regards to offenders in the community.

What happens in game affects the forums, and vice versa. Only the full DMs are equipped - and properly vetted and trained (through being ADMs) - to handle that.

The moderator team is fine in and of itself, but should always have been what they used to be in the past - an extension of the DMs' enforcement on the forums. Not an authority of their own.

[Glowfire]

Preferences...

1. Posting a warning in a thread.
2. 24-hour lockdown, and if certain individuals are specifically on the verge of rulebreaking or going at it too much, send a friendly PM at the same time, then open the thread again after 24h have passed.
3. Lock thread. Beyond being salvaged. Should be last resort.

[Tekill]

Bewbs.

((IM SO SORRY))

[Maecius]

At least from my observations, there's currently plenty of room for cordial disagreement and open discussion of opinions on the forums. Threads only end up locked when there's an out and out fight building (or already occurring), someone's flat out attacking a member (or members) of the community, or something else is seriously wrong with a thread.

Since most of the threads that end up locked are in the General Discussion forum, I decided to do a quick audit of that subforum -- going back to the start of the calendar year.

Since January 2017, that forum has had 410 threads opened in it. Of those 410 threads, 26 threads have been locked.

That's about a 6% lock rate. While I'd probably prefer an under 5% lock rate, it is worth noting that the locked thread numbers are probably at least a little bloated because I did not differentiate between threads that were intentionally locked by the author (HDM or admin notice posts, for example) and threads that were locked by moderators. If you take the 2-4 threads that probably fall into the "locked by author" category out of the equation, you do end up closer to the 5% rate.

All in all, I find this an acceptable rate of thread locking for what's arguably one of the more contentious subforums on the website. It means that close to 95% of discussions are never locked. As such, I don't believe that the moderators are being overzealous at this point in time. Especially since they remain open to unlocking locked threads once participants have had time to calm down and back off entrenched positions.

[Deathgrowl]

I'd prefer a 0% lock rate, but that's unrealistic. But your statistics say nothing about justification for those 26 locked threads, Maecius. And that is important. We both know that since january, there are a fair amount of the locked threads that have had very flimsy justifications. We've discussed this before.

And locking isn't even the entire issue.

[Maecius]

I don't think Zanniej, or Endelyon, or myself, have any reservations about overturning a moderator ruling we don't agree with. If you feel a thread's been locked (or moderated) for an inappropriate reason, you can always appeal the decision.

Whatever you do, don't just assume we're already reading the thread ourselves. Speaking for myself here, most of my BG forum time is spent in PMs and staff/admin forums. I used to be able to read 100% of all forum posts, but that is no longer the case.

Just remember that being able to appeal a decision does not necessarily mean that the decision will be overturned. Many times we will agree with our mods, or our DMs, or whoever is being appealed.

[Zanniej]

Normally, we handle issues like this with the person(s) involved. That way the topic can carry on, while rule-breakers (or potential rule-breakers) are dealt with.

In this case however, the topic was heated a couple of times, has been locked a couple of times, and reopened again, a couple of times. The last time it was reopened, it was already stated that for the slightest perceived reason, the topic would be closed again.

This topic has been running after 2 reopens. It started in an unrelated topic that got closed, continued on in it's own topic that got closed, got reopened and in the end, closed again.

Give it a week, gather the useful comments, and try again.
Don't base your entire opinion on this one topic. From behind the scenes I can tell you that the community has been doing great, as well as the moderator team. There have been very little issues lately, people have had more than enough chance to voice themselves, even if their voices would be up for discussion. And the following discussion got room most of the time as well.

[Steve]

Normally, we handle issues like this with the person(s) involved. That way the topic can carry on, while rule-breakers (or potential rule-breakers) are dealt with.

In this case however, the topic was heated a couple of times, has been locked a couple of times, and reopened again, a couple of times. The last time it was reopened, it was already stated that for the slightest perceived reason, the topic would be closed again.

The PvP Thread, in particular and in my humble opinion, was again a situation where the person(s) should have been handled, not the issue itself (i.e., the shutdown). It should have been a normal situation!

Otherwise, it is a indirect punishment of the the entire Community, to shut down a discussion, because one or two people get feisty.

It is by far waaaaaay to easy for any player to enter a Thread that sits under the condition of closure for the "slightest perceived reason" and write something to ruin it for everyone else. THIS is what is bothersome, truly.

The Thread, as example, was shut down under the "possibility" of a problem occurring, for the allowed "last time."

But shouldn't it be that the problem needed to happen, before being locked, ESPECIALLY if it was our "last chance???"

I'm not basing my entire opinion on one thread, Zan. We've been in and out of the greater discussion of Moderators for what...1+ year? Essentially, since they were instituted!

But in your last paragraph, I read that you have a standard you want to apply to the Forums about when people have been given(???) enough time and space to discuss their issues. I'll just assume here that our standards are different, but you're in charge.

EDIT: I really think AoS hit upon something good for the Forums, where the community can up/down vote comments, so as to self-regulate when people are being unhelpful to the discussion...as well as really helpful. It gives the onus to everyone to be managing how we discuss issues together, and not putting the responsibility solely on a few members.

Is what AoS suggested even possible with BBcode?

[Calodan]

Normally, we handle issues like this with the person(s) involved. That way the topic can carry on, while rule-breakers (or potential rule-breakers) are dealt with.

In this case however, the topic was heated a couple of times, has been locked a couple of times, and reopened again, a couple of times. The last time it was reopened, it was already stated that for the slightest perceived reason, the topic would be closed again.

This topic has been running after 2 reopens. It started in an unrelated topic that got closed, continued on in it's own topic that got closed, got reopened and in the end, closed again.

Give it a week, gather the useful comments, and try again.
Don't base your entire opinion on this one topic. From behind the scenes I can tell you that the community has been doing great, as well as the moderator team. There have been very little issues lately, people have had more than enough chance to voice themselves, even if their voices would be up for discussion. And the following discussion got room most of the time as well.

I feel like this is a very true statement. Being one of the ones who can lose sight of how mediated communication can go I can attest that the moderator team does a good job of asking the person who is violating the rules and being an arsehat to change their statement to be within forum rules. I have it happen all too much. Sometimes because of misunderstanding but mostly cause I am a (person).

The server overall is doing quite well. The reason this is being brought up is because of a few hot button topics that get us all quite riled up. This is okay. This shows the diversity and how much BGTSCC really does cater to multiple play styles. Nothing wrong with it really long as we are respectful of others opinions and at least attempt to see their side of the mountain.

With all that said I am a big proponent of letting people be people. I personally do not feel that anyone has the right to delete or moderate anything a person says. This is denying them their feelings, discounting them and harmful mentally just as much as any insult they put to writing. I feel that the community will weed out the ones who can not integrate into this community and the society it is. People who can not follow these rules will usually be ostracized naturally and find a very lonely server eventually leading to them leaving on their own unable to find friends to RP with. Or they start lashing out even more leading to rule breaking and getting banned.

I think it is time that the sever consider that by moderating an individual you are in essence removing their opinion and ability to communicate their feelings. This is mentally unhealthy to do to people. Or does the double standard of words being insults to others feelings only count one way? Removing words is just as harmful. Let them say it. Let it stick. Ban them from the forums. If repeat offender ban them permanently based on a review after at least 1 year. Just stop discounting them by moderation and removal. They are people too.

[Flasmix]

I would like to propose that everytime somebody wants to say something hostile they instead just post this image.

[Aspect of Sorrow]

EDIT: I really think AoS hit upon something good for the Forums, where the community can up/down vote comments, so as to self-regulate when people are being unhelpful to the discussion...as well as really helpful. It gives the onus to everyone to be managing how we discuss issues together, and not putting the responsibility solely on a few members.

Is what AoS suggested even possible with BBcode?

Just a few lines of PHP and and amendment to the select action for the vote column. Players can be provided with a default threshold of 25, a custom profile field can hold a value for preference if set.

An iteration exists in the form of the Friend/Foe profile field.

Subjective sensibilities then are self maintained.