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Maeglin Dubh
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Post by Maeglin Dubh »

Irrevenant and I usually leave topics open in the Ideas forum, whether acceptable or not, as a preventative measure. If a topic is removed completely, there's nowhere to send people when they have the exact same terrible idea. Besides, sometimes past conversations can be a present resource for people.

Removing topics and banning people will not improve the atmosphere of the board any.
Cuyo Quiz wrote:I really should push for Temuchin's brainstorming with all my might someday, when the skies are cloudy, the winds dance and the light is free to roam over the soil along the fog.
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Post by kshinji »

Disagreed - LoW being an example.
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Post by Tomsik »

If you won't give them second chance, who will browse wesnoth forums, ghosts and few veterans?
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Maeglin Dubh
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Post by Maeglin Dubh »

Perhaps you should explain why you think LoW should have been banned, Kshinji? As for me, I would have banned him from the beginning for linking to... certain material, regardless of his intent. But that's because I'm a disciplinarian, and I consider that sort of thing unnacceptable. But the fact that his English was sketchy, and he kept beating the dead clan horse, doesn't mean he should be banned.
Cuyo Quiz wrote:I really should push for Temuchin's brainstorming with all my might someday, when the skies are cloudy, the winds dance and the light is free to roam over the soil along the fog.
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Post by kshinji »

@Tomsik: i would have warned him, then banned him for a day, then week, month, year.

@Maeglin: Robotophilia, as you said, would have made it for warning. And next i would have added a rule, that people should not add unimportant topics anywhere else then off-topic - when he would violated it many times, i would have banned him. Next i would have told him, that if he thinks someone attacks him, he should think again. If he kept doing personal attacks even on people, who supported his idea of clan, i would have gave him a ban.

I mean, generally there is one rule - if someone makes something, that we here dont like, he should be somehow punished.
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Post by Darth Fool »

kshinji wrote:I mean, generally there is one rule - if someone makes something, that we here dont like, he should be somehow punished.
Which is why you have quite a lot to learn before you would be nominated for being a moderator. The first rule of moderating the forum is self moderation. There are many things that go on that I don't like, but that does not mean I should punish the people who do them. It is important as a moderator to not take offense too easily. A classic example of why this is the case for moderators is that since there is more than one moderator, there will inevitably be different views by different moderators about what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. If someone locks a topic that I think should be kept open, I don't need to go punish the moderator who did it. A certain amount of presumption of innocence is healthy.

To start with, one should never take even the most outrageous attacks as being personal. When dealing with forum members who violate good forum etiquette, I don't presume that they are doing so maliciously, but rather that they don't know better. Thus when locking a thread I will usually state the reason so that the offender can learn from his mistake. Not that I always do this if I think the reason is obvious from other posts, nor do I think that moderators should be forced to give reasons. I do it simply because I wish to not have to lock other threads for the same reason. If the offender continues on his course of agravating posts, a warning is in order. If that is ineffective, week long bans have proven in the past to be effective at getting the offenders attention in remedying their ways. The only people to the best of my knowledge that we have had to permanently ban are the ones engaged in spamming the forum with no interest in wesnoth itself.

I mean seriously, having a forum member running around posting in public how he thinks others should be banned without backing it up is annoying. First off, such a statement is by definition inflammatory. By making such accusations in public it is just asking for a flamewar, and frankly I hate having to deal with flame wars. This is especially true after it has been made clear that anyone who has a specific problem can PM me. I mean, it would be one thing if they were reporting a spammer, quite another to accuse a fellow forum member in public. And then not to back it up, that is just over the top.

Now, I could just go ahead and punish the individual who is doing this, say with a week long ban, or I could presume that the individual is just thoughtless and ignorant of proper forum etiquette. A warning might be in order first. So here goes. If you have a problem with the actions of a fellow forum member that you thinks requires moderation action, PM me or another moderator. Making accusations in public about other forum members is considered to be attempting to start a flame war. Now if you are wandering whether or not I am refering to you, well, this means you. Consider yourself warned.

In the future we may come up with a better mechanism than pm'ng individual moderators for reporting forum abuse, but generally the number of complaints to date means this has not been necessary.
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Post by wayfarer »

I've seen forums where buttons are in the Sidebar to report bad posts. Well I don't know if it's avaible for php forums and it is also open for misuse as usual.

So I quess the best is if it's not broken don't repair. Usual the forum almost regulates itself.
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Post by Sauron »

1. I wonder if the discussion was started as the result of the 2 threads:
RoH
Random flamewar
If not - these illustrate the problem discussed here, if so - I am glad problem has been noticed.

2. The problem with these forums is to some extent a problem of internal discipline of every poster. It does involve {2.1}developers, moderators and experienced players too. {2.2}N00bs are no exceptions.
I will generalize, but it is all I can afford without entering psychoanalysis of every specific member.
2.1 Being here for many years makes some ppl think they're superior to n00bs/strangers. Although the feeling of superiority might be justified, humiliating others will never be. Respecting others and hospitality is much more expected of the host you became than from n00b.
2.2 Some n00bs, seeing recent flamewars and generally bad manners in forums find participating in onslaughts started by devs/ moderators/ [old members] a simple way to become respected members of the community. Besides - people tend to reproduce behaviours they observe (some tend to contradict - but these are very low in number).

So much for "bad blood".

What are the solutions? I think everyone should control his own behaviour. People rarely attack first. Want to prevent 90% of flamewars? Do not strike first. If you get attacked think twice - mabye you were misunderstood? Mabye you were not attacked - just imagnation (here some members would place me - but I want to assure you - I am runing a policy of 0 tolerance with respect to this matter [ridiculing, making fun of, referring to in a disdainful way] rather than being a person who seeks for flamewar /I admit I have overreacted 2 times in these forums/)?

Are there any "forceful" means of eliminating the problem?
kshinji wrote:I mean, generally there is one rule - if someone makes something, that we here dont like, he should be somehow punished.
I'd say let's discuss first. It gives much more work to moderators though. Punishing should be a means of last resort.
Kshinji, is there really nothing you do that might be disliked by others?
Tomsik wrote:
kshinji wrote:Okay, then just ban people faster, and remove topics more often.
Such statements in your post look strange. :wink:
Btw - what was the incriminated "robot porn" LoW has posted/linked - was it some painting by Hajimie Sorayama?
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Post by Darth Fool »

Sauron wrote: What are the solutions? I think everyone should control his own behaviour. People rarely attack first. Want to prevent 90% of flamewars? Do not strike first. If you get attacked think twice - mabye you were misunderstood? Mabye you were not attacked - just imagnation (here some members would place me - but I want to assure you - I am runing a policy of 0 tolerance with respect to this matter [ridiculing, making fun of, referring to in a disdainful way] rather than being a person who seeks for flamewar)?
Generally, although not universally, the problem is not people getting attacked personally first and then responding, it is that people are more sensitive when dealing with anonymous users who they can not hear and see. I posted a link to a study a long time ago that pointed out that people are much more likely to take personal a statement made over text communication than if they hear it or can see the individual saying it. It doesn't take long for such a misunderstanding to turn into a general flame war. So in short, if you are feeling that you have been personally attacked and need to respond, don't. If it is unbearable, either PM the individual to try and clear things up, or PM a mod to definately clear things up. Posting nasty replies or accusations that the other person is attacking you does not help. In general it also makes the person responding look at least as juvenile as the individual he is responding to. Such behavior might work in a primarily oral culture, but in literate cultures this will only convince people to ignore you. So, if you want to have a policy of 0 tolerance towards people who you percieve as attacking you personally, that is perfectly acceptable, as long you do so by contacting me or some other Mod. Don't do so by retaliating with your own nasty comments or you only end up contributing to the problem.
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Post by Sauron »

Darth Fool wrote:
Sauron wrote:(...) I am runing a policy of 0 tolerance with respect to this matter [ridiculing, making fun of, referring to in a disdainful way] rather than being a person who seeks for flamewar[/size])?
So, if you want to have a policy of 0 tolerance towards people who you percieve as attacking you personally, that is perfectly acceptable, as long you do so by contacting me or some other Mod. Don't do so by retaliating with your own nasty comments or you only end up contributing to the problem.
Not striking 1st is enough. Retaliation is needed IF mods do not work effectively and some persons write in an abusing way. You're the first mod here who split the attack and resulting flamewar form thread I posted in. I agree nasty replies contribute to the problem, but no reply makes attacker think he is free to attack anybody in the future. RoH thread got totally moved to offtopic, instead of splitting only flamewar part, which is imho an illustration for bad mods work. Most of time attacks are not edited out, which makes the posters "lynch" attackers instead of waiting till mod steps in.
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Post by Darth Fool »

Sauron wrote:
Darth Fool wrote:So, if you want to have a policy of 0 tolerance towards people who you percieve as attacking you personally, that is perfectly acceptable, as long you do so by contacting me or some other Mod. Don't do so by retaliating with your own nasty comments or you only end up contributing to the problem.
Not striking 1st is enough. Retaliation is needed IF mods do not work effectively and some persons write in an abusing way. You're the first mod here who split the attack and resulting flamewar form thread I posted in. I agree nasty replies contribute to the problem, but no reply makes attacker think he is free to attack anybody in the future. RoH thread got totally moved to offtopic, which is imho an illustration for bad mods work.
Retaliation by nasty reply is not a form of punishment to individuals who are making personal attacks. If anything it is exactly what they want. Also, it makes it much harder for a mod to pin down any individual as the source of a problem. If, on the other hand, someone contacts me and says, "hey look at this post. I think that it is out of line." then the source of irritation is much easier to disentangle. I think that you will agree that I am in a much better position to administer punishment that will negatively effect the offensive poster. I actually don't get what you think is gained by an offended individual responding to a personal attack on this forum with his own vitriolic comments. By the time I get to reading a thread with offensive comments in it, there often are several posts that should never have been made. Combined with the previously mentioned fact that people tend to over interpret others statements against them as personal, and that there likely is some history of comments spread across various threads that effect this view, it can be quite difficult to tell "Who started it" when both the kids in the playground have bloody noses. If I were to merely ban all who made posts that I thought were personal attacks, I would end up banning all sides in the flame war, not just the one who started it. Moderators can't be everywhere on the forum all at once. Quite frankly, there is too much fluff these days for me or anyone else serious about wesnoth to read every post in every thread in time to keep offensive posts out of your view. If a mod does not take action quick enough for your tastes, the way to deal with it is to notify a mod, not to take the matter into your own hands and make things worse and harder for a mod to disentangle the guilty.

For similar reasons mods will sometimes make quick decisions about how to deal with some issue that they think needs moderation. It may not be ideal, it may even on occaision be wrong. The right way to deal with such a situation is to contact the mod who made the move, if he can be identified, or some mod you trust if he can't be. My observation of other moderators is that they are quite reasonable about listening to arguments about why particular decisions were made or how they should be modified if the arguments are presented in reasonable manner. If done by starting a meta-thread on the other hand, mods become a lot more intransigent and are likely to just mod the meta-thread.
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Post by Elvish_Pillager »

Darth Fool wrote:If I were to merely ban all who made posts that I thought were personal attacks, I would end up banning all sides in the flame war, not just the one who started it.
Personally, I think this would be a rather good idea. :?
It's all fun and games until someone loses a lawsuit. Oh, and by the way, sending me private messages won't work. :/ If you must contact me, there's an e-mail address listed on the website in my profile.
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Post by Tux2B »

Elvish Pillager wrote:
Darth Fool wrote:If I were to merely ban all who made posts that I thought were personal attacks, I would end up banning all sides in the flame war, not just the one who started it.
Personally, I think this would be a rather good idea. :?
But I'm afraid everyone would be banned, then. I remember taking part in a flame war against trolls, and I think that all of the old users here have participated in one.

I also wanted to add that when you don't speak English, it is sometimes difficult to know when what you write is offending, or when someone writes something that isn't while you think it is because you don't understand English well.
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Post by kshinji »

There is this problem, that some people think they have the law to attack you in public, because they see you do things they don't like.

And with the sentence that you guys quoted, i didnt mean that if i don't like drakes, i will ban anyone who talks about them. I mean,t we shjould state some rules on what can be posted where, and be very straight about punishing members who violate this.
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Post by Sauron »

kshinji wrote:There is this problem, that some people think they have the law to attack you in public, because they see you do things they don't like.

And with the sentence that you guys quoted, i didnt mean that if i don't like drakes, i will ban anyone who talks about them. I mean,t we should state some rules on what can be posted where, and be very straight about punishing members who violate this.
I suggest banning for short posts that reveal posters complete ignorance with respect to the discussed subject or prove he did not read through the thread. Same for posts that consist of statements irrelevant to the thread, especially if the suspect cannot convey his point. I suggest being exceptionally strict if a poster does it on regular basis, spamming almost every thread.

Seriously: no more rules are needed imho, the problem is manners and habits of posters, unfortunalely - some forum veterans too.
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