Be Nice

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Please.

Yes.

Title says all. To be nice I would add a "please"

So, Please, Enforce this: BE NICE while in forums.

(That includes Dev Team...)

If trolls aren't complaining about over-moderation, you're probably not moderating enough.

Although, things seem to be much better than they were previously when certain players were more active, so the timing of this thread is a bit strange. Maybe I'm just not looking at the right threads.

Yawn.

I agree things are much better than they were. I think there are plenty of current illustrations that would warrant a warning if not full censorship to canceled accounts. Heck, my profanity (for which I have no apology) towards Incarnate yesterday certainly merits having my account terminated. This, I'm going to call it a demand, is rather late, but still applicable to the forum. I think everyone just accepts and has acclimated to the status quo of indulgence.

Practicality check: if Be Nice is going to be enforced... someone needs to enforce it. I'm betting the devs would rather put their energies elsewhere, and that pretty much leaves Whistler, who probably has better things to do than walk around disguised as a kindergarden teacher. What I'm saying is, if you want the Be Nice policy enforced, we need enforcers, which means one of two things:
1) More moderators. Feel free to nominate some, but I doubt there will be consensus about, well, anyone.
2) A "mark as offensive" button (you've seen these on other sites). Of course, we'd need to figure out the effect of that button, and how many people need to hit that button before that effect takes place.

Here's a potential example: if you receive 50 offense marks on your posts within a week, then you are banned from the forum for a month (pending moderator oversight to make sure some of us wankers aren't flagging every post by Lecter just to get him off the forums).

Of course, we might need a few more moderators (whether that means moderators with complete moderator access or just a few people who can flag something as "actually offensive" vs "not really offensive"... I don't really care) to keep such a system in check.

I nominate me.

Amusingly, of all the people who have posted here so far (myself included) only denji, ryan, and maybe alloh don't habitually demonstrate antagonistic inclinations.

I'm curious what you who think that there should be more moderation think should be done here.

simple tell him bye bye thank you for your patronage..dont come again please

I agree with the OP sentiment, especially on General and Suggestions.

Currently my only administrative recourse (aside from outright banning someone) is to mute an offender, which then causes them to be unable to post. Devs can do this, but Whistler cannot, for now.

I also struggle with the fact that.. much how I haven't had time to improve the economy, I sure don't have a lot to dedicate to monitoring the boards and being proactive about bad behaviour. Doing it properly requires following up and emailing the individual to explain what has happened and why, and how long they'll be unable to post (or, as is currently the case, say anything in-game). This could all be done wonderfully via an automated website mechanic, but we.. don't have that right now. And I we are up to our ears in development, probably through October.

If I'm just bluntly militant and mute people who are abusive, there are a lot of people who will just be confused about what's happened and why, which eliminates a lot of the behaviour-adjusting value of negative repercussions in the first place.

So, yes. Ugh. I can write up some more intense guidelines for Whistler and have him just delete people's posts, but that's kind of a crummy solution. Plus, his time is limited too.

You need more moderators. A single mod is not enough. Not only because Whistler alone doesn't have the time to adequately monitor every thread, but also because the responsibility of moderation needs to be spread between several people, and the devs shouldn't have to double as mods. A single mod may be hesitant to actually do too much because any complaints about moderation are automatically directed solely at him, which is stressful. It's easier to just do less in that situation, which is what happens here. A group of mods could support each other and discuss any issues that may arise to figure what the best course of action is. They can keep each other in check.

Nobody is perfect for the job, and nobody has to be. This forum is often a hostile environment (partly because of the lack of moderation) and there are absolutely no longtime active posters who haven't been a part of some sort of hostile dispute at one time or another. That's okay. You just need to pick a couple of players who are generally friendly, level-headed, and have been consistently active in-game and on the forum over a long period of time. Most candidates would step up to the responsibility and act fairly. If they don't act appropriately or abuse their power somehow, you just replace them with someone else and move on.

They also need to be clever, deft, not entrenched in RP, and willing to incur the enmity of those those they curtail.

Yeah, it's a huge lose-lose, and a major headache. No matter how reasonable (and reasoned) your response, people will consider you The Man and Putting Them Down. And it's not just "those they curtail," it's often "those in the same guild as, or who are generally friends with anyone they curtail", and god forbid it's a pre-existing enmity that one is wading into.. then it's assumed you're taking sides in whatever prior matter.

I would go as far as at least letting them administer from another account (like Whistler made the Forum Admin thing awhile ago), to try and keep things more anonymous. But even that is of somewhat.. limited value.

I definitely agree that there need to be more moderators. Frankly, I don't think we'll see many people deserving full mutings or bans in the near future; even our most vociferous trolls tend to have good input. There just needs to be more trimming of trolling posts, especially in General, Bugs, and Suggestions.

And to answer your question, Maal, I would do nothing about those posts (the picture now makes even less sense with your edit, though). RP should have more lax moderation standards, and while they are crudely and angrily expressed, the point to those posts comes through and is on topic. Compared to much of the trolling that goes on here those posts are positively constructive.

I would go as far as at least letting them administer from another account (like Whistler made the Forum Admin thing awhile ago), to try and keep things more anonymous. But even that is of somewhat.. limited value.

I was actually going to suggest something along these lines a while back. One of the major issues with the way the current moderators moderate, is that they are often drawn into the discussion (read: trolled), as opposed to simply deleting, editing, censoring, etc.

IMHO, moderators should never give reason for their actions, aside from immediate context ([deleted because ______], [banned because ______] ). If people take issue with their interpenetration (interpretation, but spellchecker is awesome sometimes), then the moderators should leave that up to the higher powers to sort out. They should never resort to explaining their motives, especially in the same thread they just moderated.

Anyway, to build on the previous suggestion: Recruit a couple more moderators. Make it so all moderators must use anonymous accounts, and forbid them from communicating with the community with said accounts (aside from contextual communique). Try and find people who will not only uphold the "Be Nice" principal, but also keep their forum moderation powers/personas secret from the community (players with multitudinous alts might be a good place to look).

Not to pick on Whistler, but his moderation powers are extremely diluted simply because the position has become a very personal situation. When he posts as Whistler, posters often attack his character, and understandably, he defends himself. When he posts as Forum Moderator, people know it's Whistler, simply because he's been around for so long, and the cat's been let out of the bag more than once.

I would still vote to keep Whistler, and as Strat said, give him some support, as well as provide the entire group with a mandated level of anonymity.

Anyway, my 2 cents.

I have had direct first hand experience of the moderations of Whistler.

I have not always agreed with Whistlers. I have on occasion called Whistler down for what I considered inappropriate moderation. Those instances are the exceptions. In a majority of all cases observed by me, Whistler has dealt with what had to be dealt with while otherwise allowing significant latitude of expression.

Many of you have enjoyed that latitude, and now you are crying about it.

How about you all learn to moderate yourselves.

Learn to moderate your own post before you worry about anyone else's post.

Careful what you wish for.

"Careful what you wish for."

I've replied that way to many of these threads over the years.

I would gladly uphold new, specific guidelines. Better tools would be nice too, but I won't hold my breath.

Snax, your info is pretty old.

ITT vpr and carebears ploy to get into power positions :P