Strange moderating

[Garrett]

for nao, lets leave it at choose your own caption/adventure

 

[tobapopalos]

All this pressure on moderators it's rather childish imho. They get nothing in return, they're willing to invest some of their time and effort to look over the forums and often they're thrown **** at like nazis etc doesn't matter if you don't agree with one of them they are all useless.

If somebody doesn't agree with one action than find a moderator to ask or message Azzer about the possible abuse. You and others want to be mods to improve the forums ? I don't like to be rude without a reason but if you think a bit you ain't even a mod and all you guys do is try to start riots and fill the forums with bs threads in the name of a campaign to make it a better place.

The mods aren't perfect and never will, their decisions might often be different to yours but i'm sure that you can find more subtle and friendly ways to contradict and question one action than start all this propaganda against all the nazi mods/ops all the time you don't like something.

DarkSider strikes again. This post pretty much sums up my views on the situation. For the love of God, people, find something else to moan about.

 

[Enrico]

You may think you would be a good moderator Enrico yet you've already proven in my honest opinion that you wouldn't be.

1) You posted spam outside of the spam forum.
2) You cried about a moderators decision publically
3) You double posted ((a good moderator would use the edit button) and I am refering to the start of this thread))
4) After a topic has been moved to PM by the Forum Administrator you continue to push publically

That's 4 points based purely on 24hours.

1. Well the point was that the whole thread was not meant as spam, but as a serious suggestion. Hence the controversy, as it was an honest mistake that the moderator, using a modicum of fingerspitzgefühl could have solved.

2. No, I did not, as I never raised the actually specific topic, rather it was an attempt to point out how the moderators could and should use a bit friendlier tone, and actually inform a poster of why a post has been moved/deleted, when it is quite clear the post is wrongly placed not out of spit.

3. Editing would have made little sense. The second post is to stop people reiterating information I had then received. And where in the EULA is doubleposting prohibited. pointless *bumping* of threads is prohibited, ut the thread was still the top one when the second post was made.

4. No, I did not, I did not get a reply from the moderator in question until after I had made the thread. And the whole point of the thread was not "OMFG the Mods are evil nazis" but rather: "Why arn't the mods more serviceminded and friendly?" and not linked to the spesific topic

Now reference to your final post:
Your suggestion of moderators asking a poster if their post is spam? I mean seriously are you really that stupid. How many people in the world will openly admit to breaking a rule when asked?

"Excuse me I wasn't fully sure if you shat on my dog, did you?"
"No mate."
"Oh ok. Sorry to bother you"

Doesn't work

As you like summarising your posts heres a summary for you:

Enrico as moderator = No no no.

No, I suggest the same as Harriergirl posted as a suggestion: That a moderator informs a poster when he moves a thread, or for that matter deletes a thread. And if the poster transgressed in some way, points out the way.

(I.e. a first time poster posting a recruitment thread in the general section could be told a) that the thread is moves and b) what people usually need of information.)

And technically I am an moderator and have been for years, the question would be if I was to be a moderator HERE or not. But that is not something for public dicussion, I have learnt.

 

[Weeble]

The amount of times a day we have to hide posts would make sending a message to each user very time consuming. We, the moderators, act as if the rest of the userbase has a little commonsense and should be able to know when and why a post of theirs might have been hidden or moved.

When posts are moved, it's fairly obvious where they've gone.

Similarly, many people who post 'spam' posts do so unintentionally. Ie they think they're making a valid point, but fail to see that the post is in fact unrelated to the topic, or spammy. This is one of the reasons your 'suggestion' was moved to Spam, it contained no real substance and for all intents and purposes, was spam.


If a post is really on left field, or is bordering on official warning material, moderators will send the user a PM telling them to watch their step, or to go away and take a breather before posting again. Users are always informed when a post is so outrageous it necessitates immediate moderation.

People need to remember that we all have lives as well; we cannot sit at the computer 24 hours a day moderating and sending messages to everyone. We assume some level of intelligence from everyone that they will follow the rules and not make an utter fuss when something doesn't go their way; in some ways this may be the wrong thing to do, but it's how we operate.

There's only so much crap we can take before we detach ourselves from the humanity of the job and moderate without feeling, which would involve not talking to users and not giving them unofficial warnings before proceeding further, jumping instantly to official warnings and infractions. Something that we're all trying to avoid.

 

[Enrico]

Well, the problem with that approach Weeble is that a poster, especially a new poster, easily can start wondering if they see there thread is gone, with no indication of where it went. Personally I never use the Spam section so I would never have thought to look there.

And I still don't get what is so spammy by putting one names forward, when Azzer in another thread, (The now locked one stated by bubbles), indicated he might reevaluate the current set of moderators, as some seem to never be online.

 

[Cheese]

You may think you would be a good moderator Enrico yet you've already proven in my honest opinion that you wouldn't be.

1) You posted spam outside of the spam forum.
2) You cried about a moderators decision publically
3) You double posted ((a good moderator would use the edit button) and I am refering to the start of this thread))
4) After a topic has been moved to PM by the Forum Administrator you continue to push publically

That's 4 points based purely on 24hours.

1. Well the point was that the whole thread was not meant as spam, but as a serious suggestion. Hence the controversy, as it was an honest mistake that the moderator, using a modicum of fingerspitzgefühl could have solved.

2. No, I did not, as I never raised the actually specific topic, rather it was an attempt to point out how the moderators could and should use a bit friendlier tone, and actually inform a poster of why a post has been moved/deleted, when it is quite clear the post is wrongly placed not out of spit.

3. Editing would have made little sense. The second post is to stop people reiterating information I had then received. And where in the EULA is doubleposting prohibited. pointless *bumping* of threads is prohibited, ut the thread was still the top one when the second post was made.

4. No, I did not, I did not get a reply from the moderator in question until after I had made the thread. And the whole point of the thread was not "OMFG the Mods are evil nazis" but rather: "Why arn't the mods more serviceminded and friendly?" and not linked to the spesific topic

Now reference to your final post:
Your suggestion of moderators asking a poster if their post is spam? I mean seriously are you really that stupid. How many people in the world will openly admit to breaking a rule when asked?

"Excuse me I wasn't fully sure if you shat on my dog, did you?"
"No mate."
"Oh ok. Sorry to bother you"

Doesn't work

As you like summarising your posts heres a summary for you:

Enrico as moderator = No no no.

No, I suggest the same as Harriergirl posted as a suggestion: That a moderator informs a poster when he moves a thread, or for that matter deletes a thread. And if the poster transgressed in some way, points out the way.

(I.e. a first time poster posting a recruitment thread in the general section could be told a) that the thread is moves and b) what people usually need of information.)

And technically I am an moderator and have been for years, the question would be if I was to be a moderator HERE or not. But that is not something for public dicussion, I have learnt.

1) A good moderator knows what is spam and what isn't yours as everybody but you agrees was.

2) Get real, how many posts have you made on this matter? Answer: too many. And yet again a good moderator would know to deal with this matter in pm

3) A good moderator would understand the rules of the forum they are moderatoring:

10.2 – Bumping threads in order to keep them near the top of the list is prohibited. Posts of this nature are not conducive to community spirit and are unwelcome.

This is from the forum rules which supprise supprise are where the rules for the forum apply.

(Do you see a patern appearing here? A good moderator would and you wouldn't )

4) Reread what I put... The forum administrator took the matter to pm where on earth do I say anything about moderators? Answer: No where. Look back in this post because I've handed everything else clear and simple for you might aswell give you something to do... Azzer specifically says to you he has pm'd you bla bla bla yet you continue to fight publically. Summary: not moderator material.


Your idea is like communism, works well on paper, fails miserably when put into action.

Few more reasons for you why your brilliant theory wouldn't work:
1) Moderators moderate a large number of posts a day, they don't have time to wait for a reply from somebody before they moderate a thread.
2) It doesn't look good seeing rubbish in the wrong section
3) 99 out of 100 people aint going to admit to being in the wrong (you may use yourself as an example of 1 Enrico)


When somebody is obviously new to the forum then I agree moderatoring a post and a quick mail to explain whats happened and refer them to the rules would be useful but when it concerns somebody who's been in the community for a long time and applying to be a moderator (sorry I have to pause, that makes me laugh too much when I type it)

And big wow you moderate a forum and you have done for years, clearly you can't do the job well, need a reason? Have 4 (see above).

And as a summary as you clearly need things simple:
- Forum rules suprisingly apply to the forum
- Communism fails
- Moderating another forum means nothing
- Review your job as moderator on this magical other forum if you are doing the same on that forum as this then you aint got a clue how to moderate.
- Enrico as moderator = No No No.

 

[BlackWolf]

the moderator in question could as easily have just replied with that information and if need be closed the thread, rather than move it....

this is the only thing i want to touch on in this thread. if a newbie went on the same train of thought as Enrico (about any subject), then instead of getting any response/notification they come back one day and can't find their thread or find it in spam... so they are like wtf? why is my stuff automatically moved to spam? and then walk away and never post again.

all I'm saying is that there are some rough edges and user unfriendliness (like can we get a link back to the game somewhere on the index page? or have i gone blind and totally missed it? is it possible to do that with vbulletin or maybe set a daily event reminder and put in the URL to bush?) that could use some smoothing out.

I believe the big mod recruitment thingie was a sticky and then either deleted or went away? so there is no actual post or direction on how to apply for forum mod or any other type of position (helper, op, etc)

I think some assumptions are being taken for granted and I believe it to be an honest mistake. So that's why I just want to say that I agree that forums is an area that could use some polishing. I'm trying to help by cleaning up my own behavior. I don't think that some folks, like Enrico, come here to gripe because they are trying to tear anything down... he gripes because he cares about the game and is confused. Please help end some of the confusion by working on some of the smaller finer details. You don't even personally have to write them. Get the staff to come up with some definitions together as a team, and then you put your say on it. That way you delegate to them while you still get to ensure it's proper. Everyone posting here may know 'english' to a passable extent, but even between american and queens english grammar sometimes gets lost in translation.

/steps away from podium, sorry.

Sums up what I think perfectly. Garret your my hero... I am so happy of this new style of yours... You make me smile every day.
Marry me!

Yeah on real deal why was my post deleted in general discussion? Well actually I dont care why it was deleted... I just would EXPECT to be notified that someone has edited/deleted/moved my post in any thread without my permission. If I broke rules I want a warning, if my actions were not that bad to deserve warning I would expect to get notification... Have I ever got one? No. We never get any kind of service from mods not on IRC not on forums. Service is like a word never heard. Where has "treat others like you would like to be treated" gone?

It cant be that big deal to post person whos stuff you move/delete that you have done so. It can be even done to multiple people with simple copy paste in matter of minute(s). That is what is called good service and friendliness... then these mods wonder why they are treated as they are... Well I dont wonder. You get treated as you ask to be treated.

On top of that what happens next? This person who has been treated like **** comes here and complains and gets peed on by both mods and Azzer cause he went public with this stuff and didnt handle it in shadows.

Makes me wonder sometimes why people even uses these forums anymore.

 

[Weeble]

A number of times the moderators have had to deal with newcomers to the forum posting things in the wrong section (etc), and nearly every time we have also sent the user a message, pointing them to the rules and explaining why any action was taken, in a friendly manner. No (un)official warnings, infractions, just a friendly message asking them to read and understand the rules so that they can comprehend why their post was erroneous.
Please don't banter on about things you don't fully know!

With regards to staff applications, I believe Azzer has said before that anyone that wishes to apply for a Bushtarion staff position is welcome to PM him, even if he's not *actually* officially recruiting at the moment. The application will be saved and used for future reference if needed. At the moment, as Azzer stated earlier, he is not currently looking for any extra staff.

As a side, Garrett there is a link to Bushtarion in the bottom right (it's there as that's just the style of this forum skin!).

I'd just like to point out as well that we (the moderators) try to be as friendly as we can in all matters, but you do have to understand that we're all human. We can be carried by emotions, and sometimes that shows through in our replies to PMs, etc. If someone pushes enough buttons they're bound to end up hitting the one that controls the nuke.

 

[Ahead]

I haven't read the whole second page of this thread, but I'd like to point out some "Strange Moderating" that I have experienced, and prove several of your points wrong.

I got a 3 point infraction for a joke mail to DA. Martin and Polo who are both mods said they wouldn't have given it a 3 point infraction as it was clearly written in good humour.

I got a 6 point infraction for "Serious Disregard for forum users" <-- firstly wtf is that?! Secondly all I did was flame Davis a bit because his post was badly structured and was off topic and wholly incorrect. Tbh it could have even been considered spam, so I like to think I would doing the moderators job for them.

3 points for "Stalking" - mentioning the DA award in several posts, but only where it fitted the content of the post.

That's not even all of them.

 

[lavadog]

Seriously, if someone can link me to a forum of considerable size where the mods notify the poster of every single post they move/delete, they get twelve cookies and the thirteenth for free.

Stop crying that you don't get "service" or that people are "touching your property without your consent" (sounds dirty, doesn't it). Mods have a certain authority and shouldn't be forced to explain their every action as long as they act along the rules of the boards. They should only do that when people commit major infractions (like the TBA flame wars which were filled with loads of unneeded personal attacks and the likes). If you think mods should mail you with every little thing they do to your posts, you obviously don't have much experience with forums of considerable size, let alone mod-ing them, or you don't have a clue how much time that would take away from the actual mod-ing. Mod-ing is still 90% about making sure the forums are clean (bar the odd joke, which is perfectly fine imo), they're not just here to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

As far as asking a member if he feels his post is not in tune with the rules, that's just ridiculous. Look at them sort of as the police. The cops don't ask you if stealing is wrong, they tell you it's wrong and act accordingly. Likewise, mods decide if you broke the rules, since that is exactly their job. Problems => PM, which brings me to my next point.

Accusing mods publicly achieves nothing but two things: A) you make them afraid of mod-ing these boards like they should, because it may cause a public backlash for them, and B) everyone jumps the bandwagon, making it only harder for the mods to do their job. Having these discussions for everyone to see is quite counterproductive as to what you hope to achieve.

My 2 cents, had some more but I forgot while typing this up

 

[BlackWolf]

Seriously, if someone can link me to a forum of considerable size where the mods notify the poster of every single post they move/delete, they get twelve cookies and the thirteenth for free.

Stop crying that you don't get "service" or that people are "touching your property without your consent" (sounds dirty, doesn't it). Mods have a certain authority and shouldn't be forced to explain their every action as long as they act along the rules of the boards. They should only do that when people commit major infractions (like the TBA flame wars which were filled with loads of unneeded personal attacks and the likes). If you think mods should mail you with every little thing they do to your posts, you obviously don't have much experience with forums of considerable size, let alone mod-ing them, or you don't have a clue how much time that would take away from the actual mod-ing. Mod-ing is still 90% about making sure the forums are clean (bar the odd joke, which is perfectly fine imo), they're not just here to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

As far as asking a member if he feels his post is not in tune with the rules, that's just ridiculous. Look at them sort of as the police. The cops don't ask you if stealing is wrong, they tell you it's wrong and act accordingly. Likewise, mods decide if you broke the rules, since that is exactly their job. Problems => PM, which brings me to my next point.

Accusing mods publicly achieves nothing but two things: A) you make them afraid of mod-ing these boards like they should, because it may cause a public backlash for them, and B) everyone jumps the bandwagon, making it only harder for the mods to do their job. Having these discussions for everyone to see is quite counterproductive as to what you hope to achieve.

My 2 cents, had some more but I forgot while typing this up

If you would know of other boards then you wouldnt post stuff like this. On a lot lot more active and bigger boards moderators are divided to their own sections where they control small fargment of the boards. These people are shown under name of board as its operators and are esily contactable by anyone who feels like it.

Also their workload is a lot smaller when they know they need to worry of only very small amount of the whole boards workload. As such they have time to do what ever is decided to be best action and notify persons in question.

This whole "theres so much stuff on bush forms" is complete BS. Theres at peak times maybe at tops hundred posts a day and on normal day around 20-30 new posts and sometimes even less posts a day. If every 100th post is against rules that means theres 1! thing to edit/delete/move a day and 7 in a week. And then you really tell me that is so much work to do that people dont have time and it would be so much work to notify the person in question of that... rofl.

If my post suddenly dissapears I really cba to go around boards trying to find someone who is moderator and then pm them asking who did and what and why. If I would be new here I wouldnt cba of whole forums after such experience. So I dont wonder for a bit we get these kind of threads and posts in em. No-one has forced these mods to take their modding job, they did ask to get it. If you cant handle the responsibility by the way people expects you to then resign. No one has forced to be mod, no one is paying for the job so quit the job. If you think your up for the job then I expect to be handled by every mod as person and as valuable member of this community and to be notified every time someone touches something I have posted. Same goes to every person signed to thee boards and every mod there is. No matter how much some people annoy others. If you cant handle the stuff then dont do it.

 

[Dark_Angel]

I haven't read the whole second page of this thread, but I'd like to point out some "Strange Moderating" that I have experienced, and prove several of your points wrong.

I got a 3 point infraction for a joke mail to DA. Martin and Polo who are both mods said they wouldn't have given it a 3 point infraction as it was clearly written in good humour.

I got a 6 point infraction for "Serious Disregard for forum users" <-- firstly wtf is that?! Secondly all I did was flame Davis a bit because his post was badly structured and was off topic and wholly incorrect. Tbh it could have even been considered spam, so I like to think I would doing the moderators job for them.

3 points for "Stalking" - mentioning the DA award in several posts, but only where it fitted the content of the post.

That's not even all of them.

The 3 point infraction wasnt for the mail itself. It was for abuse of the report function, if I remember correctly - I initially did not issue you with the points for messing with the report function, however after you very childishly chose to mail me back with a "mock warning" I then chose to issue you with the points as I decided a warning clearly had no effect on you.

Your problem is that you always have something to say back. You wouldn't have half the infractions you have if you very simply acknowledged mod infractions rather than feebly attempting to justify a baseless and pointless argument. Illustrated here in that 2 months on you're still talking about the same infraction >.>

 

[Alcibiades]

snip

The only strange moderating i find in regards to you is that you somehow aren't permbanned from forums.

Your conduct is disgraceful about 90% of the time and you incessantly flame a variety of people; the mods; Azzer etc for no other purpose than the sheer joy of flaming.

While personally i found some of it amusing it has gotten exceptionally tiresome over the last few weeks and i absolutely marvel that you aren't permanently banned from these forums. That's the only 'strange moderating' i've seen as regards you. You're way out of line; and you taking the 'moral high ground' here is just laughable.

Feel free to 'quit while you're Ahead'. Pun intended.

 

[Changer]

snip

The only strange moderating i find in regards to you is that you somehow aren't permbanned from forums.

Your conduct is disgraceful about 90% of the time and you incessantly flame a variety of people; the mods; Azzer etc for no other purpose than the sheer joy of flaming.

While personally i find some of it amusing it has gotten exceptionally tiresome over the last few weeks and i absolutely marvel that you aren't permanently banned from these forums. That's the only 'strange moderating' i've seen as regards you. You're way out of line; and you taking the 'moral high ground' here is just laughable.

Feel free to 'quit while you're Ahead'. Pun intended.

I completely agree. I find the fact that you also admit to flaming people and yet still wonder why your posts get deleted and/or you get infractions against you just totally unbelievable.

 

[Garrett]

Hey i try to bring automation to the peoples at work. So now I bring an idea here...

Azzer, since you said all mod actions are logged... anyway to code a trigger event to automate a general (friendly ofc) notification or 3 for different scenarios?

That way mods don't have to be shackled to explaining *every* deleted post, plus would further give newbies (and some long time adhd peoples) reinforcement on what should be done with questions et al.

 

[BuBbLeS]

tbh most mods are nazis and need to chill

 

[f0xx]

Seriously, if someone can link me to a forum of considerable size where the mods notify the poster of every single post they move/delete, they get twelve cookies and the thirteenth for free.

Stop crying that you don't get "service" or that people are "touching your property without your consent" (sounds dirty, doesn't it). Mods have a certain authority and shouldn't be forced to explain their every action as long as they act along the rules of the boards. They should only do that when people commit major infractions (like the TBA flame wars which were filled with loads of unneeded personal attacks and the likes). If you think mods should mail you with every little thing they do to your posts, you obviously don't have much experience with forums of considerable size, let alone mod-ing them, or you don't have a clue how much time that would take away from the actual mod-ing. Mod-ing is still 90% about making sure the forums are clean (bar the odd joke, which is perfectly fine imo), they're not just here to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

As far as asking a member if he feels his post is not in tune with the rules, that's just ridiculous. Look at them sort of as the police. The cops don't ask you if stealing is wrong, they tell you it's wrong and act accordingly. Likewise, mods decide if you broke the rules, since that is exactly their job. Problems => PM, which brings me to my next point.

Accusing mods publicly achieves nothing but two things: A) you make them afraid of mod-ing these boards like they should, because it may cause a public backlash for them, and B) everyone jumps the bandwagon, making it only harder for the mods to do their job. Having these discussions for everyone to see is quite counterproductive as to what you hope to achieve.

My 2 cents, had some more but I forgot while typing this up

If you would know of other boards then you wouldnt post stuff like this. On a lot lot more active and bigger boards moderators are divided to their own sections where they control small fargment of the boards. These people are shown under name of board as its operators and are esily contactable by anyone who feels like it.

Also their workload is a lot smaller when they know they need to worry of only very small amount of the whole boards workload. As such they have time to do what ever is decided to be best action and notify persons in question.

This whole "theres so much stuff on bush forms" is complete BS. Theres at peak times maybe at tops hundred posts a day and on normal day around 20-30 new posts and sometimes even less posts a day. If every 100th post is against rules that means theres 1! thing to edit/delete/move a day and 7 in a week. And then you really tell me that is so much work to do that people dont have time and it would be so much work to notify the person in question of that... rofl.

If my post suddenly dissapears I really cba to go around boards trying to find someone who is moderator and then pm them asking who did and what and why. If I would be new here I wouldnt cba of whole forums after such experience. So I dont wonder for a bit we get these kind of threads and posts in em. No-one has forced these mods to take their modding job, they did ask to get it. If you cant handle the responsibility by the way people expects you to then resign. No one has forced to be mod, no one is paying for the job so quit the job. If you think your up for the job then I expect to be handled by every mod as person and as valuable member of this community and to be notified every time someone touches something I have posted. Same goes to every person signed to thee boards and every mod there is. No matter how much some people annoy others. If you cant handle the stuff then dont do it.

BW is absolutely correct here.

 

[Enrico]

Seriously, if someone can link me to a forum of considerable size where the mods notify the poster of every single post they move/delete, they get twelve cookies and the thirteenth for free.

http://vgd.no/ (formerly: vg.transact.no) which has close to 24 million post...

Automation is your friend!

Each and every time anything is moderated the poster gets a message specifying what infraction they have done, and how it has been solved. Any replies to that message goes back to the moderator that handled the original case, with a cc to the master moderators.


And Cheese: You cannot bump a thread that is at the top. You fail at logic my friend.

 

[lavadog]

The original suggestion did say the mods themselves have to send messages to every poster of a post they mod-ed. That is exactly where the whole time/workload argument comes from, you see? If it would be an automated process, I'd be less strongly against it.

That's why I agree with garret's automation suggestion.

EDIT: I'll give you half a cookie tho ;P

 

[harriergirl]

Seriously, if someone can link me to a forum of considerable size where the mods notify the poster of every single post they move/delete, they get twelve cookies and the thirteenth for free.

http://vgd.no/ (formerly: vg.transact.no) which has close to 24 million post...

Automation is your friend!

Each and every time anything is moderated the poster gets a message specifying what infraction they have done, and how it has been solved. Any replies to that message goes back to the moderator that handled the original case, with a cc to the master moderators.

THIS ALREADY EXISTS to some degree. When the warnings or infractions are given the email created is instant and a copy is sent to staff forums...

However, when things that are moderated or "deleted" (as azzer said it's really just removed from view) and are offered no explaination people seriously question whether or not they've made the post, if some sort of bug has happened. I apologise for the word "every" because yes there are some under the radar type mods that really don't matter, however in the case of things being moved/removed completely , the playerbase is in need of more explanation.