Regarding administration on MSB

[Arkandel]

I wanted to clarify something here folks, and I think it might warrant its own thread. I'll cherry pick one post although it's not really about that one quote but generally speaking moving forward.

@shelbeast said in Fear and Loathing (Official Thread):

@auspice I think that, maybe, if someone other than someone gushing all the time about the game (indicating a clear bias), had made that call...

I would have made the exact same call. @Auspice has my full support in this, not that she needs it. It's in the forum rules - we don't go into in-depth discussion, particularly negative discussion, on ad threads.

Please remember two things:

1. We don't moderate on MSB, but we do try to make sure threads fit their categories. Since this one was moving into a more controversial direction it was split up into a different section of the site where it can be discussed at any length. @Auspice did her job.

2. The vast majority of the posters here asked us to maintain a more civil attitude and keep things on-topic. That's what we are trying to do. You can't have it both ways, guys.

Conversely, forum administrators can have any opinion about anything at all, just like everyone else. We don't censor, we don't edit or delete posts, but we do have thoughts of our own. In my case mostly dumb ones, but we do have them!

Thanks for reading!

[Tempest]

[Thenomain]

@arkandel

Was it a Hog Pit issue? I saw the post and didn't see it that way. Maybe now people have a reason to tear each other a new one; if that was the intent then I get it, else it's not useful for a game review.

[Arkandel]

@thenomain Frankly my initial thoughts when I first saw the issue were, and I quote, "this is gonna be a shitstorm". People were getting personal right from the start.

It's definitely a Hog Pit issue. I haven't had time yet to read that forked thread but I'll say this - if the posters surprise me and it's a nice civil discussion we'll move it to the Mildly Constructive section. I'm not holding my breath on that one though.

[mietze]

I think it is probably not a wise thing to have someone who is promoting a game in the thread and somewhat casting disbelief about others problems with it be the one to move a thread.

It's different if there's only one admin, but there is not. Is it fair? No. Was there malfeasance? No. Are appearances important? Yes.

So I would say to be honest because you guys let Auspice be the one to move that thread you let her down, and risked reputation because this is not a board with a history of hands on modding or administration, not all conversation on all other threads has been moved, and probably its best if you are careful while that new culture settles in.

[Thenomain]

@arkandel said in Regarding administration on MSB:

It's definitely a Hog Pit issue. I haven't had time yet to read that forked thread but I'll say this - if the posters surprise me and it's a nice civil discussion we'll move it to the Mildly Constructive section. I'm not holding my breath on that one though.

Well sure, because now that it's in the Hog Pit there's no social cues to be considerate. "I towed your car to the south side; it might be okay there, but if it gets broken into I won't be surprised." No kidding?

Ah well.

[mietze]

Or, alternatively, don't give a shit about appearances (perfectly fine too), but don't also not expect perhaps getting a reaction or people not worrying or questioning. It's not an unfair reaction for them to have.

I have modded in both environments (sole responsibility for a board or only mod on duty from a certain time zone) as well as multiple people to assign to a task after discussion, and with stuff like that happening you will always have some raised brows. It's part and parcel of a modded/admined board, even if it's not transitioning to a more hands on admin from a very hands off one.

[Ganymede]

@mietze said in Regarding administration on MSB:

So I would say to be honest because you guys let Auspice be the one to move that thread you let her down, and risked reputation because this is not a board with a history of hands on modding or administration, not all conversation on all other threads has been moved, and probably its best if you are careful while that new culture settles in.

What do you mean, youz guyz?

Me. I did that.

Sorry.

[Arkandel]

@mietze I realize appearances are important (and not just saying that).

But I also don't want us walking on eggshells. That won't work - we have lives (I'm active in the work-mornings, marginally so in the evenings and I barely check here over the weekend) but also we have track records. I trust @Auspice and @Ganymede to do their job as well as they can - and I felt in this case the implications of bias were unfair to say the least. This was completely following the forum rules.

What's more important though is that this was what people wanted. Sure, we're all learning how to do this, you all as members of the board and us as its administrators - but if you recall my initial inclination was to not have nearly any kind of interference. I'd just step in when someone was spamming or being a racist and that's it; you all pointed out there was toxicity, hostility and oftentimes just pettiness all over the threads, and I changed my mind.

That doesn't mean anything and everything we do is justified just because well you asked for it!. That'd be silly. It's why this thread exists - so you can voice concerns and point out our failures. We're absolutely making this shit up as we go along, in case anyone was wondering, so not only am I not worried about people reacting to it but kind of counting on it.

Keep us on the straight and narrow. Just in this case we didn't fuck up. We will, just wait!

@Thenomain you are right in that a Hog Pit thread will get personal regardless. I believe it was there from the start.

[Misadventure]

And this is part of why I suggest an ad thread have one post, the ad, with two links, one to a constructive discussion, and one to a hog pit discussion.

Questions can be asked in messages, or on the threads, and a smart advertiser would add any necessary bits to the ad.

Reduces moderation and all this consideration of can anyone be trusted to move a thread cuz damn moving a thread is like quashing a story and killing the witnesses.

[Sunny]

It would help a lot if the standards were applied fairly across the board. If you're going to enforce it one way, please enforce it the other, too. If it's not, then that's fine, but you then can't get upset that people are upset with you. Because it's shitty.

ETA: To be explicit, take the shit out of the X-men thread and put it in Mildly constructive where it belongs. That is what the rules SAY. If the rules are DIFFERENT (ie: the way that Gany is judging it), then update the post to reflect that.

[Arkandel]

@misadventure We've considered something like that already (I think @Ganymede was forcefully volunteered for it ). It takes time since that's a bit of work.

[Ganymede]

@sunny said in Regarding administration on MSB:

ETA: To be explicit, take the shit out of the X-men thread and put it in Mildly constructive where it belongs.

I'm not sure if it was clear, but I posted that I had already contacted Enoch about it and advised her that if she wants us to move anything we'd do it with no questions asked. Her response did not indicate she wanted anything moved.

We moved on the Fear and Loathing thing quickly because I am nearly certain that Botulism and Paris would have wanted it moved, but they aren't coming back here.

[Misadventure]

Are you going to automate it somehow?

[Arkandel]

@misadventure To be honest I'm already spending more time looking under nodebb's hood than I want to. Unless there's a plugin for it we'll need to do it manually.

Also after this is first done once it shouldn't be too much work. It's not like we get new games every day.

[Collective]

[ShelBeast]

For the record...

I wasn't trying to outright accuse anyone of bias. I was simply trying to point out the appearance of bias, and have the actual rules made clear about what gets moved and why. Because, really, again, it came down to the nature of the conversation and Auspice's participation in that, as well as the simple fact that not letting people give their complaints in an ad, but relegating them specifically to a part of the board that is restricted.... is just kind of... meh. If a place has problems it should be easily accessible to anyone who is looking at that game as a potential place to play.

[Arkandel]

@shelbeast I know. I didn't want to single you out, but I wanted a meaty quote to anchor what I had to say and yours worked.

I don't agree that the relegation to that forum was uncalled for. It wasn't picked because it was opt-in but because it was the correct one. Let me say that again - the reason it's in the Hog Pit is that things were already getting pretty personal even from the first couple of posts.

However and aside from that please consider this: Placing it in Mildly Constructive means we'd have spent the whole time trying to prevent people from personal attacks which go against the forum's rules, and since one of those attacks was bound to be aimed at a forum administrator (since we are gamers too, and two of us play on F&L) then that would have been called biased administration and that it looks bad.

You can see that, right? The first time I stepped in to tell someone to back off from Gany (which I'd only do because the forum rules say so, not because the lawbot can't tear someone to shreds without my help) I'd be accused as well of backing my fellow admins.

Well, now it's in the Hog Pit where none of us is any more sacrosanct than anyone else.

[Sunny]

@ganymede Right. The rules don't say that it is up to the game runner/etc. So if that's what the practice is going to be, I'd like the rules to be clear about it. There is nothing wrong with asking for the 'rules of engagement' post to be updated with what the actual situation is.

[faraday]

@sunny said in Regarding administration on MSB:

@ganymede Right. The rules don't say that it is up to the game runner/etc. So if that's what the practice is going to be, I'd like the rules to be clear about it. There is nothing wrong with asking for the 'rules of engagement' post to be updated with what the actual situation is.

FWIW I would suggest not leaving it up to the game-runner, as that's just going to lead to even more confusion about what is or is not appropriate to post where.