Agree 100%

I should just stop going to work eh? These things always happen while I'm gone. Going to get caught up and see if anything jumps out at me as needing a response - or if someone wants to ask a question specifically of their sections moderator now's a good time as any.

Is it possible to get an entire forum to agree to a detente? Absolutely! The flavor and storyline board exists now specifically because I helped form just such a detente seven years ago. But it would have been a hell of a lot easier if the trolls from that period had just been permabanned. It should never have gotten to that point. And that for me is the central question of accountability here.

It also happened specifically because there were two sides to a debate, and good faith actors on both sides, and we were able to reach a consensus that we could ease off of each other.

That REALLY does not seem to be the case here, and I think what will happen here is what happened with the Mending Flamewars: the grand troll supreme never stopped dragging people into flamewars even though the overall tenor of the board improved immensely after we agreed to a ceasefire. That never improved.

...Of course, I could say the same thing about the way Head of WotC Creative Brady Dommermuth baited some posters repeatedly but that's thankfully a thorny situation that we don't have to deal with... Those were... those were anxious days... >_>

With whats going on and the original point of the OP we should be discussing what changes need to be made to the CoC so this type of behaviour is not something that someone can get away with. There needs to be an addition to the CoC where someone deliberately acts in a disruptive manner that they be warned and then punished if the behaviour continues. Currently the closest violation we have to deal with our current problem is spam. If a poster posts multiple posts in succession or derails discussions they can get warned according to the CoC. I am thinking we need to add some clarification to this section or at least add another part to the CoC that has the right wording to stop individuals from dancing around the CoC.

I guess what I am asking for is did a person post something out of "bad faith" (I quoted this since it was used earlier and could be what the section is called in the CoC) and is that someone deliberately trying to incite unrest in the forums. It would be nice to have this bad faith section added to CoC. This again has to go through the normal warning/punishment procedure since we have to in the interest of fairness to give everyone an equal chance to improve themselves. However, there are situations in which punishment is sped up such as blatant racism or posting shock images where the poster has no intention of changing their habits. I don't believe we can speed up the punishment for posts out of bad faith, but rather that we have to weather the storm until the person has used up their last warning. The problem currently is many people are trying to backseat moderate and engage said users. Nothing good comes out of engaging a user that is already being moderated since it is just more stuff the limited moderators have to moderate.

The last point I would like to touch on is that we need to have a way of dealing with repeat users. I understand that there is no method that can stop people from joining since workarounds will always exist. Yet, there has to be something we as a community can do in tune with our moderators to prevent this same issue from resurfacing with a different name. If anyone can suggest a better solution this would be the place to voice it.

/discuss

What do you plan to do when you find someone spamming the board with divisive nonsense, designed to do nothing but promote chaos and disorder in the Duels section?

What do you feel about someone flame-baiting other users into a ban? There's at least two instances I can think of where someone provoked another user.. but did it in a way as to not violate the CoC. Secondly, this user OPENLY ADMITTED to doing this, and was proud of the act.. yet no punishment was ever levied. So.. the message sent was that provoking other users is fine, as long as you don't violate the CoC (name-calling, etc.)

Isn't baiting like one of the first things strictly prohibited in the CoC? Or am I interpreting that wrong?

The problem is that our trolls are manipulative and slick. They know how to do their deeds and fly under the radar.

Okay for sake of example let's say a person never overtly starts flame wars and even says adamantly that's what they "dont" want and yet the flame war always starts in response to a post or thread they make.

Is this baiting? Does common denominator hold any factor in how moderation is dealt with? Or are mods simply looking for who "started it" even when it had really been started weeks ago when a person decided to create an environment where flame wars are going to happen?

Well I think some people really need to drop their general dislike of other specific posters. A lot of the time, and I touched on this earlier, these things happen between people that are generally decent posters, but haven't let go of a slight that in some cases may have happened years earlier.

Also, and this is something that happens all of the time. There is nothing worse than when someone is obviously getting trolled, but someone else joins in, or agrees, or whatever, simply because they don't like the target. That kind of stuff really needs to stop.

Now this is less to do with stopping trolls, and more to do with making the community better.

Contact a moderator via PM. I can't stress this one enough. If you only ever make one PM/Report to a moderator make it this one. Calling out suspected MUP's solves nothing - if anything it only worsens the problem. While not fool-proof the moderation team does have some ability to check things like that - you'll be amazed exactly how many MUP's have been banned either because the Mod got suspicious or someone told us to get suspicious. It works some 85% of the time.


Subtlety edit the worst of it (hopefully before anyone catches it and things start escalating), leave what could be conducive to a discussion forming, watch from the shadows to see if said discussion does happen, step in and moderate if needed. If the person persists effectively take them to one side for a nice chat while discussing the issues that have come up - show them clemency that they may in return attempt to work with us to be a constructive force on the boards, rather then a destructive one. Then step back and let them decide how they want to progress from there. Most of the time it works out. Other times they persist in old behaviors and we react accordingly - both parties being fully aware that after the chat their is no more good will to give for those who make no attempt at compromise.


This one is currently being addressed, of that I can assure you. I will admit the strike system is often cumbersome and it can be abused at times but as a team we prefer to give second chances - even to people who may not deserve it. We do retain the ability to ignore this system in extreme circumstance (spam bots being the most obvious) but I, personally, am loath to do so.

I do agree with the CoC thing though - I know we can't really instate 'Rule 0 - Don't be a Dick' but I like to think most people enter the forum with that assumption already in place. I can tell you that, in the past, people have broken the CoC and not been punished for it and others have not broken the CoC and have been punished for it. We do take intent into consideration when making judgements - it just so happens that most of the time I tend to try and think the best of people (once against even if they don't deserve it). Call me a naive idealist I guess.


No it isn't technically baiting, yes we do look at the situation as a whole before making judgements. Or at least we do in an ideal situation. Sometimes a situation simply escalates too quickly to be put-down and the only course of action is just to stamp the entire thing out and call it a day. I will hold my hands up and admit right here that there have been occasions we're something has flared up that should have been quickly dealt with but, for whatever reason, I didn't. I apologies profoundly for that. That I am only human is a weak excuse but it is the only one I have.


Agreed.

You don't need an excuse your one dude you can't be expected to be present all the time and we can't constantly be stealing Althalus to fix our problems either.

Thing is the only person in the duels community I would trust with mod powers is well... the other you so idk what the solution is to this

Thanks. And that really is something of a pickle. I honestly believe that another mod - even if all they do is cover my off hours - would really help things not spiral so wildly out of control, even if it didn't solve the underlying problem.

Is this a conversation we could actually start? Like getting another mod from the userbase within the subforum?

I see no reason why not.

So, this is my take on things. IDK if it helps figure out a solution, cuz I'm not suggesting a solution. But I figured if I layed out the situation the way I see maybe it will help shed light on a solution for others.

In the Duels Sub-Forum we have a core group of people that I consider myself to be a part of sometimes (because I take long hiatus' and am sometimes banned). This core group has known each other for a long time. Some of us are from before the migration. We talk **** to each other, as old friends do. When someone calls out a card that is widely considered a good card as BAD with no evidence to support their position then we tend to call them out on their **** while trying to educate them. Sure, that's not the best approach, but it's one that is explained by the buddy-buddy factor of the core group. Unfortunately we sometimes forget to reign ourselves in when dealing with people from the forum that aren't part of that group.

On the other hand, I'm actually really nice to people with low post counts because I assume their new, but I've been drawn into some elaborate bait-hook trolling due to that approach. In fact, most everyone on the Duels forum has. And multiple times. And by multiple accounts from the same person. (something that mods may not have PROOF of, but other posters have proven it through links to other forums or reddits where people were bragging about this issue)

Also, take into account that, there's a certain "honor among thieves" camaraderie among the aforementioned core group. Nobody in that group is going to Report anyone else for a percieved slight, because that's what we expect from our friends. To be corrected in the most humiliating way, because they're our friends, they don't mean any real harm, but it's always fun to get a chuckle out of your buddies. Besides, by not using the Report button, and self policing ourselves, we're allowed to have a little bit of fun outside the CoC without anyone getting in trouble.

Those three things; A group that knows each other very well and understands each others attitude. A group that's been jaded and is now hyper-sensitive to new people coming in and trying to "break up the band." And lastly, but definitely not least, a group that just simply doesn't use the Report button. Those three things have created the environment that we have now.

Yeah I really feel you on that last point sixty.

I've hit that report button so many times, looked at the blank space, and just not done it. This is going to be the toughest thing for me to change. It's just not how I'd handle these things in real life.

viewtopic.php?f=38&t=12424&p=376811#p376811

I made a thread.

Congratulations. Your 1 post a week is complaining about an issue 2 years old.


@Mastergear I feel like there was a huge miscommunication here. Oh well.

Is this baiting? Should I report it?

Honest question.

DJ, I can’t believe you think a solution is for people to drop their dislike of other posters. These are human beings for crissakes


Look at mjacks last post as the perfect example. Hakeems post is funny. It's a jab in the most cute and friendly way possible.

Sixtys point about honour amongst thieves is PERFECT

Also mastergear is awesome