And use the report button more.

The problem is some people just won't do either. That's part of why we are in this situation.

More people will use those features if they are improved.

honestly, as an outsider, I think Duels could stand a hard clean-up. like the mods did with the OTR, which used to be a spammy wasteland. they basically announced that they were aware they'd let things get out of hand but they weren't gonna do that anymore and they were going to strictly enforce guidelines. I think the problem with Duels is that, with Kheldar gone, Gear can't keep up with everything going wrong (although I can't guarantee it worked well with Kheldar there either.) and now the community's gotten used to that status quo and will resist efforts to gently push it back. so screw gentle pushes. just scorched earth the whole thing, get a couple new mods in there to back up Gear, lay out a set of rules, and enforce the crap out of them. add in more active patrolling in the short term to make sure things aren't missed and get stopped before things get bad. sure, you'll lose some of the posters most committed to the entrenched drama, but really that's probably not a loss, since it sets up the community in the future to not, you know, have that drama. and if they shape up and stick around instead? that works too, 'cause then you get their contributions. win/win.

I would support that. Somewhat. I don't think it's as bad as the OTR was though. ... Maybe.

God this is so frustrating.

Those aren't the only alternatives. Saying that you guys need to use more judgment, take action more frequently, or even just ever acknowledge that assuming the absolute best of absolutely everyone even when you are literally posting out of uniform about how people are terrible has consequences, or pointing out how unacceptably slow the response is to problems and to repeat offenders, or noting the actual, provable effectiveness of singling out particular people for harsher warnings and quicker pushes through the warning system, is not asking for ORC style incompetence or Salvation style macho ultrapolicing.

Why is it so hard for you guys to actually take criticism seriously? When people beg you respectfully to intervene, as we saw here, you ignore them completely. When someone confronts you directly, you give them this runaround.

The only people whose opinions you guys seem to respect or care about or even acknowledge are the gentle moderates who will tell you you're doing the best you can, or the people who freak out at the sign of the slightest moderator action and behave as though 4chan is the community we should be emulating.

Everyone else is just dismissed out of hand.

I'm fine with an OTR style purge too.

Whatever we do, we can't continue in an environment where the mods feel someone needs to be

@Keeper:
I'm not going to speak for Mastergear here, but I've been involved in here as well, reacted to almost all the points people made, given stuff that both we and the users have to better to prevent it from happening more.
I've said it before, but the talking in absolutes has to stop.

@Mjack:
This latest stuff started because of my latest post indeed.
I was indeed warning for definite warns if the same would continue, but I left it to others to check out the reports already made because what I see as good discussion, can also be put up as flaming/baiting depending on user history between the people and I didn't think I had the user history for that (and by the time I would've gotten it, I assumed someone else would have handled it already and Mastergear indeed did so). So I apologize for that phrasing.

is that provable? in what way? are you still using the mjack example? because what made mjack reform, according to mjack, wasn't extra hard warns or a longer ban. it was a personal conversation. it was a moderator (in this case an admin) reaching out and saying "hey, this is a problem." bun didn't just hit them with harsher penalties, they communicated the issue and spelled out some steps they would have to take if it didn't resolve. which is markedly different from a "ban on sight" list. sure, there are certain posters who, if they ever show up here, I will relentlessly report their every transgression until they quickly get themselves banned. in fact, one such poster already crossed our path, and I think the mods dealt with them in as short a time as could be expected. if others follow, they'll be dealt with too.

I really don't see this rampant degeneracy you're talking about. Duels has issues, but those issues have nothing to do with posters who are not yet here. and the rest of the site seems to be moving just fine. YMtC has had no issues, General has had very few, Hearthstone has been completely respectful, PbP has been smooth, and the time I've spent in M:EM has had no issues either. I don't spend much time in AFS but nothing I've seen in the times I've visited there has alarmed me. so I honestly don't know what the problem is. outside of Duels the levels of moderation have seemed completely reasonable. I recognize that that's subjective and everyone has their own comfort levels, but are there specific, recent incidents that make you think this is a particular problem that needs to be addressed? there's been times in the past where I've agreed that responses have been too slow, but nothing recent. it's probably best not to go into too many specifics for not-baiting-people reasons, but have there been actual incidents recently?

I haven't gotten the sense that the mods have much respect for the 4chan crowd.

This latest stuff started because we feel like nothing is going to change, and we are going to continue as is with maybe a new ignore feature and a couple new mods. If you guys are discussing further steps, it is not clear , and as stated:



If you feel the need to do this, something is not wrong. Something is broken.

So, are you saying they should just ban him?

We're not even 4 days (still a few hours short from 96 hours ) from since people said 'hey, I'd like to help'.
Your expectations for any discussion is way too high.
Us mods are in different time zones as well, so we're not going to be giving everyone mod powers and see what sticks. We want to analyze the people who applied first. And that takes time.

And I don't know the Steve situation, so I'm not going to respond to that.

not that I necessarily agree with the action, but isn't that basically what you said turned your posting around? a mod telling you that your presence was a major disruption and that if you persisted they'd remove you? isn't that what you attributed your new good posting habits to?

@Scarlet, that's the way the discussion has been going. If you are discussing something else in private, then that context is not available and would be appreciated. However, as far as the public thread is going, it's starting to show the signs of dying off (bar the next impending drama revival) and the things we've decided on are:
- We need new mods.
- We need a better ignore feature.

If it looked like the thread was going to remain active and/or tons was going to come out of it, then we would probably be having a different discussion. More needs to be done then that, even if it's just saying we are going to consider Razorborne's latest suggestion (which resulted as a side-effect of our current discussion).

@Kryder, The problem is not limited to one user. We have a systematic problem in our subforum where "clashing personalities" are a recurring issue, and something proactive needs to be done.


@Razorborne, my posting habits changing were a direct result of a personal decision because I did not want to be perma-banned from the board and I generally don't have any principles I feel are worth getting perma-banned over. So when a mod tells me to quit it or get perma-banned, yes that was the catalyst.

I do not believe this is the same for every user in Duels, as most of them are either:

A) not close enough to a perma-ban or even a serious ban that that is a concern

or

B) generally don't care.

Either way, my opinion is that this is going to be a problem again and a recurring one if we continue as is.

I do think we're past the point of talking and now it's up to action.

We are working on our stuff (more eyes, work on a better response time).
We can only see how the users will react to a 'next DragonXXX' after it happens (the earlier use of Report, not reacting, stuff like that).
A lot of 'normal' regulars, even lurkers, have also mentioned that it's the fault of all the parties involved in the clashing personalities. And our stance on it has also been mentioned (if someone mentioned it's a problem, it's the fault of the one making the joke. But as butt, you can't like it yourself then react badly when other users pick up on it as well).

The thing that's left (as far as I think) is in possible addendums/changes in the CoC to sooner prevent new users from being able to disrupt a forum.

We also need an addendum dealing with recurring disputes between the same group of people.

Actually, no. Those disputes are irrelevant unless they break the CoC. If they break the CoC, the tools are already in place to deal with them.

No. They are completely relevant. There's a reason Stevo vs Hakeem is a much much much bigger problem than Mjack vs Binderato.

If it's the exact same two people getting into it over and over, especially when one is antagonizing the other, then that's a bigger problem than two randoms.

agreed. if the same people keep starting trouble, those people need to be dealt with.

The question...did they break the CoC? If not, there is no issue. If they did, well, we have what is needed, with Moderation.

There is no reason to add complexity to the situation if something already exists. And it does.

Unless there's something I'm missing, I don't see why any member should be barred from discussing in this thread. Every member of the community should have a right to share their opinions in a constructive manner. If they can't do so, they probably shouldn't post in this thread, but if Steve can offer opinions about what will/won't benefit the Duels community without attacking anyone, there is absolutely no reason he should be banned for contributing to the discussion.

Treating the symptoms of community dysfunction won't solve the underlying problems. If you had stopped everyone in the Duels community from posting in this thread, I doubt you'd have had to delete or edit anything in this thread, but doing so alienates the people you exclude and prevents the solution from having a perspective that represents the entire community.