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[Hieda no Akyu]

IRC is indeed a relatively unmoderated medium, which is even noted in some server's MOTDs, so this is what you should expect from IRC, and fully moderating a channel to weed out every single joke like that will be very counter-productive, and chances are will drive out many otherwise good users of the community... not that I support racism, but that's just how some IRC channels I go to died.
Now let's say that you make #bay12games unoffical, and create a new channel, banning/punishing anyone who makes a slightly off-color joke? Won't be too healthy for the community, I'll give you that.

My proposal would be making #bay12games more of a chat channel, and making another channel, along the lines of #bay12-help, or something, where newbies will be directed, saving them from this kind of joke. _{Not that I have power on #bay12games or anything.}

Bottom line? This is how some friends joke.

[Markavian]

Don't leave us Toady... !

(/me thinks of all the waiting fans)

We used to look forward to your visits.

Not that I have power on #bay12games or anything.

Hieda no Akyu - your opinion counts for everything; we listen.

[Makrond]

This was indeed a monumental lapse of judgement on my part.

I have to admit I was worried that my comments were what had driven Toady off when he left shortly afterwards. It seems I was right.

I do wish you had raised the point with me far, far earlier than this, but I guess you weren't feeling particularly reasonable at the time, which is more than understandable.

[Anticheese]

My proposal would be making #bay12games more of a chat channel, and making another channel, along the lines of #bay12-help, or something, where newbies will be directed, saving them from this kind of joke. _{Not that I have power on #bay12games or anything.}

I don't think this is a good idea. Sure, we talk about a lot of off-topic stuff, but when a newbie asks a question it's usually answered instantly.

And speaking of newbies, please consider re-linking us on the website.

[Captain Mayday]

Yeah, I answer a major part of these questions myself. There's less of a problem with people getting DF answers than there is people thinking I'm  Mike Mayday.

[Hieda no Akyu]

<Words go here>

I don't think this is a good idea. Sure, we talk about a lot of off-topic stuff, but when a newbie asks a question it's usually answered instantly.

I guess this is somewhat true... I wasn't thinking too clearly... Please ignore my proposal. Please.

My take on the situation?
Let Makrond sort this out. He caused this after all.

[cowofdoom78963]

I dont like toadys invisible hand, its disturbing me .

[Hieda no Akyu]

I will attempt to lighten the mood now.

'nuff said.

[Toady One]

Please keep in mind that although Makrond was the only marked op, Anticheese was an op on the old channel, if I remember, and as far as I knew he was still held in a similar esteem over on the new channel.  I had started going back to the channel a bit, and on the third or so visit, that is what I got, from two op-status people and someone else (Heph) whose name I recognized as a regular.  That was the log I was reading.

Now I don't know if the fact that how common this sort of thing is on the internet has numbed people a bit, or if it has to do with you not having grown up around where I grew up or whatever, but the gravity of this situation is greater than people seem to be willing to accept, in PMs and in here.  People have lost their jobs for less than what was said in that chat, and that sort of thing is a massive liability to a business, individual or other entity that can stain its reputation permanently.  The channel can be somebody's very first impression of the Bay 12 Community or even Bay 12 itself.  My own impression on my return visit was that one in three new channel-goers were going to be subjected to occasional completely vile statements from multiple people in positions of authority, and I pulled the plug immediately to minimize the harm being caused to me.

I've been accused via PM of tarring all of the channel mods as racists.  I don't think I even tarred the mod in question as a racist.  I said he or she was playing Klan rally, which I think is an apt enough description, and I provided the channel log, which shows exactly what happened.  More likely this falls under a typical brand of internet subculture, which I think is very harmful and asinine but not the same as traditional racism.  As for the other mods, most of them probably weren't even there.  What this sort of behavior does, though, is tar Bay 12 Games as the sort of place that tolerates this kind of thing.

In this way, the channel is a perpetual liability.  I can correct abuse in a straightforward enough way on the forums, but I lack this ability in IRC.  Somebody said via PM that my decision to remove the links to the IRC shows that I've lost confidence in everybody there.  I think this is too simplistic, but partially true, in the sense that I think things obviously weren't in good shape at that time.  I left the channel in disgust and with a sense of urgency to insulate my web site from it.  I do apologize that the people I've met from the channel over the years, especially those that don't also hang out on the forum, did not come to mind.  I was quite angry, and less than a week after this, the issues on the forum came to a head as well, which has really pushed me over into a bit of a self-preservation frenzy.  I realize that can be detrimental, but doing nothing is worse, and sometimes I don't have time or am not in the right state to reflect on a more proper course of action.

As for relinking the channel, I don't know what the right decision is.  It's late, and I'm going to sleep on it, at least.

[Captain Mayday]

Actually... Nobody apart from yourself and maybe some random folk knows what 'Klan Rally' actually means. Certainly none of the ops do, we had a meeting. If I'm piecing it together from the context it means 'pretending to be vile and racist without actually being so'.

Anyway, I don't believe you tarred us all as racists. And I do accept your decision that the channel, without your control over it, is a liability. I invite you to please create a list of rules for us to follow. I am only the Founder, the watcher of the watchmen so to speak. I try and police them so that the regulars are policed. However if you wish to create a substantiated list of rules I'll make sure they are followed.

[Timst]

Hm, I have to admit Toady seems to be rapidly losing patience with the forums.
But let me tell you, I have moderated / administrated several forums, and moderation ISN'T the solution. In fact, too much moderation is way more unhealthy for a community that no moderation at all is. The abuse of the ban, mute, lock, edit, delete etc. functions only lead to frustration, anger and bitterness. Over time, people will stop enjoying being here, and will begin flaming, trolling, there will be conflicts, "alternate communities" will be created (we're already there with the new VN forum), people from the "new community" will argue / troll with people from the old one and vice-versa, there will be more conflicts, and at the end the whole community will crumble to its end.

So I don't think this place should be too moderated, that's counterproductive. Look at the facepunch forums : people get banned for next to nothing there. It look like an horrible place to spend some time, and I'll never create an account there.

Another thing : face it, you can't moderate the forum yourself. Especially if you take into account that you're the only developer of one of the bigger game ever created. That's just impossible to manage a forum so big (nearly 9000 users (which only 40 % of them are living in the USA, the rest is all over the planet, so the forum is virtually active all the day), over 650 000 posts... with an average of 1140 post per day) for one person.  I don't say you're a bad administrator, just that this is not humanly possible, even with the "report to moderator" feature.

So considering these 2 points, what could be a solution ?
Apparently, if you moderate so much the forums, it's because you "don't want a new DF player to see that side of the community". That's a good reason, for sure. So one think I thought about will be to create a forum (like "Various nonsense", I never been to it but a bunch of people here seems attached to it, so it will be a wise move), and to put into the forum's description a disclaimer saying that you're not responsible for what is in it, etc., to avoid newcomers stumbling into it. The forum itself will be unmoderated, or very lightly, to remove only the more "hardcore" topics (illegal material, for instance). By doing this, all the randomness of the B12 forum will go into this forum, and the rest will be "safe and serious".

TL;DR :

- Too much moderation is worse for the forum's ambiance that no moderation at all.
- Toady may be The great, but he can't complete his megaproject game and moderate a forum with an average of 1000+ post per day at the same time.
- The "I don't want to show a bad image of the forum to newcomers" problem can be fixed by throwing all the "bad content" into a new forum and to put warnings about it.

That's just my idea, maybe you / other users think differently.

[Captain Mayday]

I don't think we need another forum for that. I don't think that content need be posted at all. There are places for that. This isn't one of them. Nor do I want the irc channel to become a place like that.

[Armok]

.
.
.

Heed these words, for they are ones of wisdom.

Something like this, but not whit as clear a formulation of why, is what I mean with making the New VN semi-official, it's much easier to claim nonresponibility if it's hosted, started, and moderated by someone else.

[Jackrabbit]

I think Toady manages this forum just fine, because ThreeToe can manage it whilst he works on DF and he seems to have been able to keep it up, as show by the steady development, for years. I don't think a new forum is the best, or even a good or safe, idea.

[Timst]

Oh, since it's an ambiguous word, by forum I meant a new section in this forum, not a new website with a forum on it. But Armok got a point here : having the forum hosted by someone else is another step to claim non-responsibility.

Captain : Sure, you may think that these content shouldn't be posted at all. But the recent events has proved that lots of people don't think like that, and since they also are a part of the DF community, it will be a bit rude to expel them out because we disagree with them on this point.

Jackrabbit : Well, I don't know. It used to work smoothly, but there has been a lot of forum-related events the last months, and it seems that's Toady is slowly but surely losing control of the situation. Threetoe may help, but that's still a lot of work for 2 persons.