Moderator Complaints Options

[Chrome Tiger]

Is snarkyly even a word? And if so, you spelled it wrong. How are you gonna rise up against the mods if you cant even accomplish basic grammar? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Sorry SinN, but in addition to previous warns, this instance of baiting gets you a 'vacation'. You were warned. Anyone else want to step up to bat?

[Ol' Scratch]

Yeah and RJ told me to use firefox.

Firefox has helped me quite a lot in that regard, actually. I had no idea I was misspelling certain words ("accidently" being a big one) for, well, forever. Plus MS Explorer sucks anyway. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[fistandantilus4....]

Apparently my proper spelling is a bigger concern than I thought...

[Chrome Tiger]

Apparently my proper spelling is a bigger concern than I thought...

*lips moving completely out of sync with the words* And for this... You must pay! Here in Land of the Rising Dumpshock, all bad spellers' lives are forfeit! If you use IE, we double the penalty! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

I am fairly certain that nobody can claim ultimate spelling/typing mastery 100% of the time. Calling people out on spelling errors is just nitpicking and potentially baiting, given some circumstances.

[fistandantilus4....]

Unless you're a professional writer, where i can see it being a serious pet peeve/ hang up. In which case, at least do it tactfully.

I'm going to put a new link in the posting guidelines. "Don't do what uncle SinN does."

[Chrome Tiger]

Unless you're a professional writer, where i can see it being a serious pet peeve/ hang up. In which case, at least do it tactfully.

I'm going to put a new link in the posting guidelines. "Don't do what uncle SinN does."

Bah, professional writers do it too, often times as much as the rest of us. They just tend to take it personally when it is pointed out. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Kagetenshi]

It's funny how few (if any) people had any trouble with the moderation until a bunch of people crawled out of the woodwork and started accusing them of being in some kind of huge conspiracy to... Hell, I'm not even sure what the conspiracy is about.

I'm pretty sure that they're in a conspiracy to moderate.

~J

[nezumi]

Is there a reason why offensive posts are permitted to stay, unmodified? In a forum I moderate, I generally require the user to modify or delete the offending post within a given time-frame. That establishes a record of permissible behavior, both for reference and as a teaching tool.

[fistandantilus4....]

Because we don't like editing people's posts. I'm all for people doing self editing, and we've held back some warns for it, in the past and recently. Some of it is "what is said, can't be unsaid" blah blah. You said it, now you're accountable.

If someone wants to clean themselves up, I support that. At this point at least, it's not something we're going to direct people to do. I know Adam for one is really touchy about that. While he's not an active moderator, like Bull, he still has a lot of say. He just doesn't have to do any actual moderating. He still does plenty for the boards.

[Method]

One of the thing that really struck me as intersting when I crossed over into the metaplane of Moderation was how few members actually have warnings. The vast (VAST) majority have none. A handful have one or two; these tend to be long time members who have seen a good flame war or two. And then there is a small subset of individuals who have much more. Obviously these are people who have both strong opinions and forceful personalities, neither or which are bad qualities. It just predisposes them to having issues with moderation.

The point here is that warnings in general only affect a very small segment of the greater membership and the the ones who generate the most work for the moderators already would love to have a public forum in which to debate their warnings. Conversely, the majority of those that recieve singular warnings for isolated incidents seem to appreciate not being put out in stocks for all to see. So "open moderation" (if you want to call it that) would garner very little benefit relative to the amount of work it would generate for us.

[Fuchs]

The point here is that warnings in general only affect a very small segment of the greater membership and the the ones who generate the most work for the moderators already would love to have a public forum in which to debate their warnings. Conversely, the majority of those that recieve singular warnings for isolated incidents seem to appreciate not being put out in stocks for all to see. So "open moderation" (if you want to call it that) would garner very little benefit relative to the amount of work it would generate for us.

Just to make sure you are not adressing me:

I don't want a forum to adress specific warnings, but I would like to know who was warned for what, especially if it concerns me. A forum to discuss moderation policies and procedures is something else. As DireRadiant can attest to I never argued my warning should not have been given, my issues were with the way it was issued.

As far as singular warnings go - I got two warnings, and have been around for several years.

Also, I am not sure how much additional work a copy/paste of the warning itself into a special warning thread (which could be deleted after a while, if needed) would be, or into the thread itself would be, but I don't think it'd be that much. I also do not think more transparency would create more work - it might cut down on both questionable posts and reports when one doesn't have to do the learning by doing wrong thing.

Honestly, it is easy to follow rules like "do not make threads about a ban/warning". ENWorld works like that. People who cannot follow those rather binary rules tend to end up permabanned in short order.

[Method]

Fuchs: no that comment was referrig to the very small subset of users that have 8 or 9 warnings on file. (edit: and I should add that this does not apply uniformly to all of them either)

Also, I would conceed that the mods could be more visible with the colored inline text, posting something like "this thread is being reviewed due to possible ToS violations" or what have you, but I don't think specific details are useful. Like I said my gut feeling is that most members don't want their dirty laundry aired and don't care to see others'. I could be wrong.

[Fuchs]

Fuchs: no that comment was referrig to the very small subset of users that have 8 or 9 warnings on file. (edit: and I should add that this does not apply uniformly to all of them either)

Also, I would conceed that the mods could be more visible with the colored inline text, posting something like "this thread is being reviewed due to possible ToS violations" or what have you, but I don't think specific details are useful. Like I said my gut feeling is that most members don't want their dirty laundry aired and don't care to see others'. I could be wrong.

I do think too that most offenders do not want to see their dirty laundry aired. But I do also think that giving public warnings would make people a bit more cautious.

I also agree that others do not want to see the dirty laundry of others - but they do see it though. They do see the flaming posts, the baiting, name calling, and personal attacks. What they do not see is the "cleaning up", aka the moderation action. Seeing that would be something I think many would like to see.

Also, if there was a "ban/warn thread", no one who did not want to see that would be forced to see it.

[Cthulhudreams]

The penalty box is still the best feature of Penny arcade's moderation. I also like whirlpool's Aura rating.

[Method]

The penalty box is still the best feature of Penny arcade's moderation. I also like whirlpool's Aura rating.

How do those work?

[Cthulhudreams]

Whirlpool you can vote on the contribution made by members to the forum, which generates an aura ranging from

* Incandescent;
* Luminescent;
* Bright;
* Light;
* Normal; and
* Low.

Which is displayed when people post. Access to forums likely to generate contreversy outside of the core forums (Telco/IT discussion board) is limited to 'bright' users and above.

Penny Arcade publically logs all infractions and bannings with reasons, links to the thread & post that generated the infraction or banning, a copy of the PM sent by the mod to the user (except for spammers) and (generally) a copy of the orginal post in two stickied threads, and if a user is penalty box'ed, it causes a reduction or elimination of posting privledges and changes their avatar.

This gives very good transparency. Both methods would obviously be good.

[Method]

Thanks for the info Cthulhudreams. The Whirlpool system sounds interesting but I don't know if that would be supported by the Invision software. The Penny Arcade system sounds like it would be way too much work for the few mods we have right now.