Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.

[Arkandel]

@ganymede said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

From our conversations beyond the curtain, the answer is still undecided.

It's a work in progress, yes. I'm skeptical about knee-jerk reactions since things are more or less okay. We're not rushing to put out fires, we're trying to improve the forum.

Clearly, there has to be some moderation, but I think the issue is whether we are going to dip in and monitor the place with an iron fist, simply keep an eye open, as we usually do, or somewhere in between. I take Arkandel's comment to mean that we aren't going to go with the former, even if I wouldn't have a problem cracking down like ICE in El Paso.

Right. There are multiple issues with keeping track of every thread and coming down like a ton of bricks on anyone who steps over the line, starting with how tricky it is for even a single person to be consistent about the line let alone three. The time commitment is another issue, as I don't want this to become a 24/7 job for us (let alone to feel like one).

But also I don't think it's necessary. It's quite possible people here are right in that we've been too lax on moderation outside the Hog Pit and we should be more actively keeping things civil, which should be doable without nuking from orbit every time.

Regarding policy, I take Arkandel's comment to mean that forcing people to be nice to one another is beyond the scope of what we'd like to do. Grumpily commenting when there's dog-piling or shit-storming isn't the same thing, in my opinion.

Agreed. We can't fix cliques but we can point it out when we feel the dogpiling is getting out of line.

[Auspice]

@faraday said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

@auspice said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

So we should focus on solutions that we can enact without coded crutches.

Not to be defeatist or anything, but if we rule out manual moderation, and we rule out automated tools, and we've demonstrated that policies by themselves don't help, ummmmm..... what's left?

I, personally, am not ruling out manual moderation. I do think we should rule out automated tools so long as we are on a software set that is causing people to post bug reports at least once a week. I don't trust nodebb at this point in time. I don't want to put time and effort into automated tools only to have them fail on me a short time later.

@kanye-qwest said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

@auspice said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

There's also the fact that we're adults.
It doesn't matter if soandso did it to you before. This isn't an acceptable excuse when you're ten and it certainly isn't acceptable as an adult.

But "what are you, ten?" isn't a helpful response at all in the context of the discussion, which was about people feeling singled out.

Fairness is about consistency. No one is perfect, and no one can perfectly be consistent, but meeting complaints about consistency with dismissive glibness isn't the way to enable understanding.

You've missed my point. A point that came well after the discussion on people feeling singled out, which I was actively a part of.

If this is an attempt to try to stir people up against me, you are actively contributing to the very problem you're claiming to champion.

I stared that we offer children the respect and responsibility that they are capable of not retaliating against others merely because the person performed a punitive action upon them, albeit in a simplistic and off-the-cuff fashion as I was on my phone.

Perhaps the following will be more descriptive and definitive: As we are older, more mature, and have a greater understanding and empathy of members of humanity around us, I feel that we are even more capable of this act than a child (who has much less control of their emotional and knee-jerk responses) would be.

If you are not capable of refraining from attacking someone merely because "s/he did it first" and have that punitive need to harm someone (often worse) just to see them suffer, perhaps participating within a community full of empathetic (as creatives often are) people is not for you.

@wizz said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

"We've got moderators, but we don't want to moderate, but there's a still a problem" is the conversation that is still happening like five months after I went back to occasional lurking?

As I've stated, I don't mind moderating. The issue I have is more that while I can handle some lashback to aforementioned moderating... I am not a stone wall. I do have some squishy insides.

I also need consistency and support from my fellow moderators. And there have been (for the sake of transparency) days where I have gone to them, pointed at something, and said: "I want to moderate this." and received a sort of 'eh, I think it's fine.' in return.

So I will say once again: if the forum wants moderation, I will moderate. I will moderate across the board. I will even begin using that fun feature where we can suspend people for just a couple days (for cooldown periods). A lot of people will not like it. I think @Ganymede has said they will do this, as well.

---

I also think it may be time to officially made the Ad thread ads only. No discussion whatsoever. Want to discuss a game? Put up a Hog Pit thread (for the down'n'dirty) or a Constructive thread (for the random chatter). Keep the ad thread for details (the ad, any updates such as big events, opening of new spheres or OCs etc) only.

This way there's no derailings, no 'well how come we can only say nice things?!'. And as those threads are made, someone can go in and link them in the ad thread.

How's that sound?

[bored]

I'll add that while I'm fine with nothing changing, if you're going to change things, I agree very strongly that it needs to be in the way @lithium and some others have suggested, ie with clear posted rules of what is ok and not-ok in every forum area. This is another place where my prior (and agreed-with-in-principle, at that time) suggestion of restructuring the boards might help, as it's a lot easier to have heavy handed moderation if you designate areas as the 'be nice, no really, we will ban the fuck out of you' vs. 'critical analysis, try and put some factual content in your posts' vs 'poo and popcorn and gifs' areas. I don't mind carebear zones for those who are more comfortable there, nor Hog behavior being clearly enforced to it.

Outside of some hard rules, I have zero faith in it being applied even remotely fairly consistently, for the reasons we've seen covered pretty heavily. Equal behavior is frequently treated very differently here, and no volume of 'we can totally be objective!' protest is going to make me actually believe that. So if you're going to do it you need at least some pretense of standards, as well as presumably some method of addressing/appealing mod behavior.

I should also add, as much as she decided the best way to keep this thread positive would be to dare me to derail it and personally attack her, this would actually benefit @Auspice. When people disagreed with her modding, they had no recourse but to burn effigies in the public square. If there are rules to point at, and a process (ie message @Arkandel or w/e), maybe that could happen less. As mods you're never going to escape the idea that this forum pretty much has its roots in having a venue to circumvent unchecked, unanswerable, unquestionable authority, so if you want to be active you probably have to balance it with a certain level of self-restraint and transparency.

[Thenomain]

@bored

I see a future where people expected to self-moderate will use the rules as a way to feel validated in harshing on others.

I see this future because we've lived it.

On pretty much every game I've ever seen.

I like the intent, but it starts with people acting kinder to others than they have, or monitored by people with a more even keel (e.g. admins), in which case we won't need the precision rule-parade.

[bored]

@thenomain

And without any rules, I see a future where staff mods throw their weight around to win arguments, shut down any discussions, and pick favorites... or at least the board perceives them to be doing such regardless of it being true, and every action becomes steeped in distrust, suspicion, and recrimination.

I see this future because we've lived it (on every single MU/staff discussion ever, if you somehow missed the reference).

Edit to less sarcastically add: I have no problem with a rule-zero 'be kind to each other (except where prohibited)' being part of things. Obviously people aren't robots (not even @Ganymede, hurr hurr) and there will always be a level of subjectivity. But having no guidelines at all seems to invite the worst in both the mods and those they're moderating.

[Wizz]

@auspice said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

I also need consistency and support from my fellow moderators. And there have been (for the sake of transparency) days where I have gone to them, pointed at something, and said: "I want to moderate this." and received a sort of 'eh, I think it's fine.' in return.

That's kind of what we're all trying to say. You guys should be having that conversation once in a blue moon for weird borderline cases, not often enough to dissuade you from taking any action at all. Ark and Gany shouldn't be making a judgement call when you come to them and all that implies (mood that day, different instigators, etc etc) and the way to make it so is to establish what is or is not acceptable and put it in writing so you can turn and say "hey listen, This Person is the third in a row who is just coming down on That Person," (for example,) "I am going to remove it and link people back to the No Dogpiling rule."

[Thenomain]

@bored

I didn't see your response as sarcastic. It's a good point. We can no more be trusted with anarchy than we can with self-moderation under a heavy rules regime. We don't disagree on that point.

I wanted to offer some warning that "have rules" alone is not a solution. It needs to be tempered with leadership or earned trust (what some incorrectly call "favoritism"; thank you for reminding me of that, @VulgarKitten).

[Ganymede]

@wizz said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

You guys should be having that conversation once in a blue moon for weird borderline cases, not often enough to dissuade you from taking any action at all.

We have these quite often, actually. Most of the time, it goes sort of like this:

Auspice: I think we have a problem.
Arkandel: I wonder what we can do about that problem?
Ganymede: Crush the problem.
Auspice: We could potentially do X.
Arkandel: What about Y?
Ganymede: Option Z is most appropriate, and it is to crush the problem.
Auspice: If we crush everyone, Gany, we won't have any more membership.
Arkandel: I wonder what having no membership would be like?
Ganymede: Serenity. Peace through tyranny.

Well, sort of, at least. With little less Megatron.

But, we talk. A lot. As of a few months ago, if you saw something it was for a reason.

[Wizz]

@ganymede WHAT IS BEST IN LIFE???

[Seraphim73]

@auspice said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

I also think it may be time to officially made the Ad thread ads only. No discussion whatsoever. Want to discuss a game? Put up a Hog Pit thread (for the down'n'dirty) or a Constructive thread (for the random chatter). Keep the ad thread for details (the ad, any updates such as big events, opening of new spheres or OCs etc) only.
How's that sound?

Eh. I kind of like having general-overview sort of comments about the game from others. I also think that it's valuable to have Staff answer some questions about the game there in the ad thread (system, CvC or CvE focus, Can I Have A Gold, etc). I agree that it's really easy for them to get derailed, and it may be more effort moderating them than it's worth, but I think it's definitely worth something.

[Derp]

@auspice said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

@wizz said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

"We've got moderators, but we don't want to moderate, but there's a still a problem" is the conversation that is still happening like five months after I went back to occasional lurking?

As I've stated, I don't mind moderating, [but] I also need consistency and support from my fellow moderators. And there have been (for the sake of transparency) days where I have gone to them, pointed at something, and said: "I want to moderate this." and received a sort of 'eh, I think it's fine.' in return.

This is kind of what many of us are seeing, too. We have mods. But the mods don't have a consistent message about their ability or desire to mod. Gany is cool with tyranny for the sake of peace, Auspice is cool with modding, but Ark seems to be kind of wibbly and dragging his feet about it, and less is done than what many of us think is even a reasonable middle ground of moderation.

That is kind of a problem. Because, like or not, you guys are in that position, and some stuff needs to happen there. Not saying that you aren't discussing it or whatnot, but the rest of us out here without those powers are seeing a pretty inconsistent message about it. Ark might not like that part, but that's part of the job.

And it is a job. But it doesn't have to be a 24/7 one. Post rules. Enforce rules. Impose consequences, at least mostly consistently, for breaking the rules (beyond dragging threads into the Pit because people don't care about standards of behavior if we just throw things into the mud pit after they get mud everywhere else anyway).

[Auspice]

@seraphim73 said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

@auspice said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

I also think it may be time to officially made the Ad thread ads only. No discussion whatsoever. Want to discuss a game? Put up a Hog Pit thread (for the down'n'dirty) or a Constructive thread (for the random chatter). Keep the ad thread for details (the ad, any updates such as big events, opening of new spheres or OCs etc) only.
How's that sound?

Eh. I kind of like having general-overview sort of comments about the game from others. I also think that it's valuable to have Staff answer some questions about the game there in the ad thread (system, CvC or CvE focus, Can I Have A Gold, etc). I agree that it's really easy for them to get derailed, and it may be more effort moderating them than it's worth, but I think it's definitely worth something.

I've been kind of going back and forth on this. A lot of the time the 'innocent' questions either become a derail into unrelated discussions/theorizing or are used as an underhanded way to attack the game/genre.

It may be better served if instead people PM'd the game-runners or tagged them in other threads (the Constructive thread for the game) with their questions and then the game runners updated the main thread with an FAQ.

This might be a more focused model. And then, instead of people scrolling through four pages of back-and-forth, there's a quick FAQ right there to look at.

[Lithium]

@auspice I am still of the opinion that the Advertisement thread should be an initial post by the author and then locked, so the initial poster can edit it but no discussion about it. Put the discussion in other topics.

[Roz]

@seraphim73 said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

@auspice said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

I also think it may be time to officially made the Ad thread ads only. No discussion whatsoever. Want to discuss a game? Put up a Hog Pit thread (for the down'n'dirty) or a Constructive thread (for the random chatter). Keep the ad thread for details (the ad, any updates such as big events, opening of new spheres or OCs etc) only.
How's that sound?

Eh. I kind of like having general-overview sort of comments about the game from others. I also think that it's valuable to have Staff answer some questions about the game there in the ad thread (system, CvC or CvE focus, Can I Have A Gold, etc). I agree that it's really easy for them to get derailed, and it may be more effort moderating them than it's worth, but I think it's definitely worth something.

I think that we all like having some general overview comments from others, along with the opportunity to ask questions, but @Auspice is totally right that they tend to become shit shows more often than not. So I totally get the consideration of just putting discussion and questions somewhere else entirely. Like, yeah, it kind of sucks, but so does our general inability to behave in ad threads, so what're you gonna do?

[Auspice]

@lithium said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

@auspice I am still of the opinion that the Advertisement thread should be an initial post by the author and then locked, so the initial poster can edit it but no discussion about it. Put the discussion in other topics.

So I thought about that, too.

But I'd want other Staff on the game to be able to post, too, y'know?

And it to not just be one single big BLAH of a post.

So that a Staffer can come in and say:

"We just opened OCs!"

or

"We released Geist!" (I just really want Geist 2.0 okay hush)

or

"We're having a huge plot next week!"

or

"Here's a handful of new questions that have been answered..."

and if we're more heavily moderating, the three of us could go in and pluck any non-'official' posts in an ad thread and move them to one of the other (Constructive or Pit) threads as appropriate.

And as noted, there can be a post in the thread with links directly to related threads. Like say I put up an ad thread for Pugmire: The Hydrant. Then someone launched a Mildly Constructive thread to discuss Pugmire: The Hydrant and someone else launched a Hog Pit thread to discuss how much they hate Pugmire because surely it's just gonna be a bunch of yiffing.... one of the moderators could then go in and add a post on the original add thread linking to both the Constructive and Pit threads (indicating which is which) so that people can go and see that discussion.

From there, myself and any Staffers could add new posts in the Ad thread ("Hey guys, Cats are now allowed!" "Hey we're launching a new chapter in the metaplot next week, now's a good time to go through CG!" "Here's a bunch of new questions we've answered in the other threads..." and so on), but people would have those and direct links to the other discussions.

I think this would help people who come to MSB for the ads, but also help keep things from heavily derailing and/or causing those ads to just end up off in the Pit (as they often do).

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@lithium said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

@auspice I am still of the opinion that the Advertisement thread should be an initial post by the author and then locked, so the initial poster can edit it but no discussion about it. Put the discussion in other topics.

I've thought this for a long time and still think it, though I've come to the conclusion that MSB in its current form maybe just isn't a particularly good place for straight-up advertisements. Is there some board limitation that would make the original poster unable to update? Locked to OP and admins seems the ideal for these, at least in terms of them actually serving as ads.

[Auspice]

@three-eyed-crow said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

@lithium said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

@auspice I am still of the opinion that the Advertisement thread should be an initial post by the author and then locked, so the initial poster can edit it but no discussion about it. Put the discussion in other topics.

I've thought this for a long time and still think it, though I've come to the conclusion that MSB in its current form maybe just isn't a particularly good place for straight-up advertisements. Is there some board limitation that would make the original poster unable to update? Locked to OP and admins seems the ideal for these, at least in terms of them actually serving as ads.

So one of the models of forum software I'm looking at has 'pages' (web site pages) and even KB articles.

I am thinking if we use such a software, we could actually curate actual ad listings.

It'd be some additional work, but it would allow us to be more of a properly informative site.

[surreality]

Going to mention my long-standing request again: a constructive dedicated dev section for brainstorming and games in development. This isn't the same thing as constructive generally, and I really would like to see it get a home. I genuinely think it would be a net positive for the forum. It'd be useful for startups, idea pitches, and existing games looking at adding new systems they want brainstorming and such for.

I'd really, really like to see this. Add about forty more 'really's there.

[Apos]

@surreality said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

Going to mention my long-standing request again: a constructive dedicated dev section for brainstorming and games in development. This isn't the same thing as constructive generally, and I really would like to see it get a home. I genuinely think it would be a net positive for the forum. It'd be useful for startups, idea pitches, and existing games looking at adding new systems they want brainstorming and such for.

I'd really, really like to see this. Add about forty more 'really's there.

It would be cool to be able to post, 'Hey I would like to try X' without getting like, a barrage of how much that idea sucks and 20 posts about people bitching why won't someone make Y or Z instead until the original poster flees in terror. Like, I get the whole, 'Well they wouldn't have made a game anyways' but I dunno if 'game design by hazing' is really all that productive.

[faraday]

@apos said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

Like, I get the whole, 'Well they wouldn't have made a game anyways' but I dunno if 'game design by hazing' is really all that productive.

Seriously. It's one thing to have a person mention constructively "Hey have you considered..." based on some past experience, but a barrage of naysaying or people asking for something completely opposite of what you asked about is just freaking annoying and disheartening.