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[LordNagash]

Ok this very thread is getting out of hand, but disregarding that, what are you expecting from the "general discussion?"

Because a lot of poeple are annoyed at the "atheist thread" (too confrontational) at the pony thread (too silly), and I'm sure that here is thread that will be deemed too serious. Then what?

If it's just an excess of meme and/or completely useless posts, a line in the rules and maybe one more moderator dedicated to this task would suffice. (no pointless posts)
Else I don't really understand your point.

I'm not sure I understand toady point either, if he's just annoyed at the thread or at the general state of the forum.

I don't know about anyone else, but from a forum named General Discussion I usually expect a discussion. Not a stream of random one word posts, out of context images, empty quotes and other random bullshit.

[Simmura McCrea]

snipity snip

I shouldn't have to ignore it. That's the entire point of having a set of rules, and moderating to those rules. To get rid of undesirable things from the forum so people don't have to 'just ignore them'. We could 'just ignore' spambots and trolls and illegal material too, but a) it wouldn't be quite that easy and b) it sure wouldn't be a good image for the forums or for Toady.

Also, are people seriously going to stand here and defend what has been going on in the happy and sad threads? After toady just locked them both to drop /another/ warning about it? I'm telling you now there won't be a third warning, not with the increasing frustration being shown by all the threads that have been disappearing into the ether, and the fact more bans have been handed out in the last month than probably in the year before it.

Sure you should. People talk about stuff you don't like. That may be a shock, but it's true. You don't see it so much in real life, because you and your friends are likely to share similar likes and dislikes in general, so you don't have friends that do the vocal equivalent of putting tildes on their speech. But other people do. The internet shoves all these people into one area, so you get to see all these different types of people and discussion.

[RedKing]

Ok this very thread is getting out of hand, but disregarding that, what are you expecting from the "general discussion?"

Because a lot of poeple are annoyed at the "atheist thread" (too confrontational) at the pony thread (too silly), and I'm sure that here is thread that will be deemed too serious. Then what?

If it's just an excess of meme and/or completely useless posts, a line in the rules and maybe one more moderator dedicated to this task would suffice. (no pointless posts)
Else I don't really understand your point.

I'm not sure I understand toady point either, if he's just annoyed at the thread or at the general state of the forum.

I don't know about anyone else, but from a forum named General Discussion I usually expect a discussion. Not a stream of random one word posts, out of context images, empty quotes and other random bullshit.

So start a discussion. That's how the Internet works. Just like a Wiki, if you don't see what you want, MAKE IT.


I will say this: Toady is the one to pay for the servers which allow this community to exist. On that basis, I fully agree that he has every right to impose whatever rules he wants or insist that all forum activity be DF-related. I certainly hope he won't, but I'm not going to argue that it's unfair or that he can't.

[LordNagash]

snipity snip

I shouldn't have to ignore it. That's the entire point of having a set of rules, and moderating to those rules. To get rid of undesirable things from the forum so people don't have to 'just ignore them'. We could 'just ignore' spambots and trolls and illegal material too, but a) it wouldn't be quite that easy and b) it sure wouldn't be a good image for the forums or for Toady.

Also, are people seriously going to stand here and defend what has been going on in the happy and sad threads? After toady just locked them both to drop /another/ warning about it? I'm telling you now there won't be a third warning, not with the increasing frustration being shown by all the threads that have been disappearing into the ether, and the fact more bans have been handed out in the last month than probably in the year before it.

Sure you should. People talk about stuff you don't like. That may be a shock, but it's true. You don't see it so much in real life, because you and your friends are likely to share similar likes and dislikes in general, so you don't have friends that do the vocal equivalent of putting tildes on their speech. But other people do. The internet shoves all these people into one area, so you get to see all these different types of people and discussion.

That's not even vaguely the same thing. People may not like the same things I like or talk about the same things I do and I don't expect them to. But if I asked them the question 'What made you happy today?' I would expect an answer to that question, or discussion about what someone had already said. Not a random out of context quote shouted at me.

Also I think this thread is getting derailed into a discussion about particular threads when it is in fact about the forum as a whole, and the particular threads were just a timely example.

[LordNagash]

Edit: whoops double post, old forum I used to post at automatically appended them to the other one

[Phmcw]

Then why not doing the first obvious thing, because I can understand how pointless post can be boring : add "no pointless posts" in the rules.
This would at least allow for internal moderation. Right now, you don't really have any ground to criticize them (or reason no to do them, not all person here are Internet veteran used to forum etiquette, and form what I could see, a lot of poeple have been schooled on b)

[Sowelu]

Back on subject, I still don't think these forums could survive with any other form of appointed moderation.  Probably better off they moved than that, because as much as I like you guys, I really can't fathom putting up with BS from not-very-impartial mods.  Nobody here is impartial anymore.

[Retro]

The faux cuteness thing annoys me as much as anyone, but I don't see why it should lead to banning.

I'm not trying to encourage banning in any way. I'm actually posting this in the hopes that there will be less bans handed out. I'm not looking for hardass drill sergeants to whip everyone's asses into line. I want moderators so there will actually be someone the community can go to if they have a problem, and not just to tell them who to ban. Issues should always be talked out if it can be helped. Having moderators around means less threads degenerate into... well, stuff like the Write Fanfiction About Other Forumites thread from the other day, which ended in someone throwing around spritework and multiple people slapping swastikas onto things. Threads should be locked only when they're inappropriate or unsalvageable, and less threads will go down the unsalvageable road with someone paving out the issues before it gets there.

Those of you defending the Happy thread and similar messes should note that they're exactly the kind of thing Toady has expressed displeasure about.

What has he said about them exactly? I mean, it's hard to hate something for the sake of it.

Top of the first post. Plus both Adams brothers have gotten a lot more aggressive in their moderation lately, likely due to their frustration, as I also talked about.

Please calm down a little bit, all. I used the happy/sad threads as an example. I'm not trying to 'kill everything you love.' I... no, let's not try and make that an analogy. I'm trying to get some actual discussion going about the fact that there's really nothing you can do if you have a problem with anyone's or a thread's behaviour other than report them. As a spark for some, say, less personal discussion, I'd like to hear alternative suggestions that aren't simply "just leave it be." If we don't get a few casual mods and/or guidelines, then what should I do if I have a problem with a thread that isn't necessarily breaking any of the explicit rules?

I've got to get to class. I'll check up on this thread later. Hopefully it won't get too heated by then :\

[Aqizzar]

I posted this without reading the post above it.  I probably should have, but I think it still stands.

Not a random out of context quote shouted at me.

I actually agree with most of the comments in this thread, and with you, more than you probably believe.  But I think that line elucidates your attitude about the issue.  Nobody is shouting anything "at" you, certainly not without mentioning you in particular.  Has it not occurred to you that you might be taking this a little too personally?  That just because your eye wanders over something you don't want to read, doesn't mean you're involved in it?

[Sowelu]

I'm curious what separates the mew threads (and yeah, I know we're trying to get away from specific examples, but let's take those and generalize FROM them) from forum games.  Stream-of-consciousness chat-type threads seem quite similar to some of the RP threads, not that I go in the forum games area very much.

Maybe we should take whatever standards and protocols we apply to forum games, and find a way to nudge our problem threads under that umbrella.

[LordNagash]

I posted this without reading the post above it.  I probably should have, but I think it still stands.

Not a random out of context quote shouted at me.

I actually agree with most of the comments in this thread, and with you, more than you probably believe.  But I think that line elucidates your attitude about the issue.  Nobody is shouting anything "at" you, certainly not without mentioning you in particular.  Has it not occurred to you that you might be taking this a little too personally?  That just because your eye wanders over something you don't want to read, doesn't mean you're involved in it?

Oh, it's not something I'm taking personally. It's just that I'm trying to continue what has become a rather tortured analogy at this point, and I'm equating ALL CAPS to IRL shouting.

[lordnincompoop]

Then why not doing the first obvious thing, because I can understand how pointless post can be boring : add "no pointless posts" in the rules.
This would at least allow for internal moderation. Right now, you don't really have any ground to criticize them (or reason no to do them, not all person here are Internet veteran used to forum etiquette, and form what I could see, a lot of poeple have been schooled on b)

Because that doesn't really work. Without a moderating force, you might as well disregard the rules. Try leaving a class unsupervised for a period of time; they'll start doing whatever and messing around, regardless of rules. Now, as much as you (and I) want this not to be true, we aren't very different.

As Retro mentioned, we're not too eager to internally moderate either. And we can't, for one; we just send reports to Toady (if we send them at all) and then he has to spend the time, effort and patience he doesn't have to dealing with it.

I really do think Toady should get more mods. Hell, I can name several decent ones already.

[Simmura McCrea]

I posted this without reading the post above it.  I probably should have, but I think it still stands.

Not a random out of context quote shouted at me.

I actually agree with most of the comments in this thread, and with you, more than you probably believe.  But I think that line elucidates your attitude about the issue.  Nobody is shouting anything "at" you, certainly not without mentioning you in particular.  Has it not occurred to you that you might be taking this a little too personally?  That just because your eye wanders over something you don't want to read, doesn't mean you're involved in it?

Oh, it's not something I'm taking personally. It's just that I'm trying to continue what has become a rather tortured analogy at this point, and I'm equating ALL CAPS to IRL shouting.

Actually, I was trying to separate the two types of discussion. Since, as usual, I fail to make myself understood, I'm going to go back to lurking.

[rarborman]

Having lurked on this forum since pre-VN deletion, I can say this forum is the only interesting thing on the internet, and I've been to plenty of places to know that it doesnt get any better, and could infact be quite alot worse like some have said.

Still coming here every day is the highlight of my afternoon, but people who think there is no problem with how we act here are very poorly informed, and make me never want to read post ever again.

Yes there are people who foolishly derail other peoples threads, weither they mean to or not, with one word replies or massive quote pyramids or infuriatingly big images with little or no context or jokes about a thread title that made somebody think about something crude, but without moderation or even other people telling them that they dont want them to do that, its as bad as asking someone to do it.

I'd have to say that before toady even hears about anyone thinking he need more moderators we all need to learn proper forum edicate and treat forum spammer and problem makers like a gunman, and less like rapist (because the majority of rape victims never report it, but your damn sure to report a guy who just shot you) and although you might not think it is that kind of thinking is wrong.

Although additional moderation wouldnt hurt.

+loves Rosalynne

[Sir Pseudonymous]

The faux cuteness thing annoys me as much as anyone, but I don't see why it should lead to banning.

I'm not trying to encourage banning in any way. I'm actually posting this in the hopes that there will be less bans handed out. I'm not looking for hardass drill sergeants to whip everyone's asses into line. I want moderators so there will actually be someone the community can go to if they have a problem, and not just to tell them who to ban.
...
Top of the first post. Plus both Tarn brothers have gotten a lot more aggressive in their moderation lately, likely due to their frustration, as I also talked about.

More restrictive, aggressive moderation only leads to worse behavior among forum users. It leads to a higher user turnover, alienation of most levelheaded users, and a general lack of existing standards to learn from and adhere to, just as much as a complete lack of moderation does. See: almost every other forum ever. Adding third party moderators just creates factionalism and abuse. See: almost every other forum ever.

Yes, people who make spam and get in fights need to be whacked with a mute to straighten them out, and some threads are blatant trolls and should be locked. But saying "no silliness ever because serious business!" is even sillier than a thread about goddamn cartoon ponies.